Restore Xplane 10's Water Color

[strider1 575]

Perhaps some lakes may look that dark but it would be a good idea to have different tones of water depending on the geographic location like the Caribbean with light blue tones, hope someday this feature may be included in future versions.

Austin did mention water in his interview !

[HiFlyer 9,358]

I see better reflections. Is the new color just trying to match the sky?

[ohsirus 241]

I see better reflections. Is the new color just trying to match the sky?

 

It's not the Beta that changed the color, it is my TerraHaze plugin.

[TheHoser11 39]

I wonder if it's just TerraHaze doing it's job? Blue skies will mean blue reflections in the water making it appear blue or bluer. Dark skies will often result in dark looking water with hardly any blue in it.

 

That's an over-simplification, but something to think about.

[Paraffin 2,197]

Perhaps some lakes may look that dark but it would be a good idea to have different tones of water depending on the geographic location like the Caribbean with light blue tones, hope someday this feature may be included in future versions.

 

As someone who grew up in the South Florida/Caribbean area I've never liked the color of X-Plane's water, but I don't think whatever Austin & Co. end up doing to improve it can be based just on latitude or wide areas like "the Caribbean."

 

The reason you get those intense aquamarine colors in the 'Crib and other places like the South Pacific is a combination of high water transparency, white sand on the bottom, and shallow water near shore and over reefs. Just tinting the overall water wouldn't cut it, it's pretty specific to what's actually under the water and the water quality. For example, it's common in the Caribbean to see that color extend over a large area because the region is relatively shallow. In the South Pacific, the islands are volcanic with sharp drop-offs and faster color transitions. It can all be modeled very realistically with individual scenery files and orthophotos, but it would need accurate hydrologic and near-shore underwater terrain data to do it with auto-gen. 

 

Another thing that looks very unrealistic is the color of many rivers in the Tropics, like the lower Amazon where the water should be a brown color and not blue at all. Or the reverse in some alpine streams where the water is an intense aquamarine. That's another area where hydrologic data like silt content might eventually be used for more realistic colors.

 

Anyway, I've just installed Terra Haze and I do like this better than default, even up around areas like the Pacific Northwest where the waters are darker (deeper), and shade more towards gray during the bad weather months. There's something odd about the default X-Plane water color... almost a purple tint... that looks unrealistic. To me, this looks better as whole-world compromise effect.