Yes, I was. In fact, that's the easiest way to tell that the textures are as static as a static sheet with a big neon sign above it saying "static textures are here again" :smile:

Gents;

 

Further to my finding re: edits of the WaterConstants.xml file.

 

Today I installed REX 4 Texture Direct Service Pack 4, and tested the water animations.

 

Yes REX have fixed water animations in Texture Direct! How? Because they modify the WaterConstants.xml file for you! I picked this up because my test file that I listed in post #53 was overwritten, with a timestamp as of when I injected an animation.

 

Opening REX's WaterConstants.xml file I note that they have upscaled the fWindScalar values #1 to #4 by a factor of 10! So my caculation of a scalar of 3.2 (post #48) was not far off! (do not want to fall foul  of REX by giving you the values they use directly, but hint is clear). My value of 6 for fwindscalar4 is probably too high, which makes for rather fast scrolling of the texture ( I kind of like that, you may not) but a value around 3.0 - 4.0 seems more realistic.

 

SO, in short, if you have REX Texture Direct and update it to the latetst service pack, I think you will be very happy. Great improvement, thanks REX (Reed and team!).

 

REX also seem to have rescaled the water textures, so you dont get those gigantic waves in inland water, but I stand to be corrected on this.

 

If you do not have REX, then my edits to WaterConstants.xml as posted above, have been confirmed by what I see REX doing inside this file, so my edits do work the same way, just maybe lower the fWindScalar3 to about 3.0, and fWindScalar4 to about 3.5.

 

Also to get rid of gigantic waves, you can try fTextureScale4 with a value of 2 or 4 (instead of 1). That scales down the ever-visible (all distances and alts)  wavetextures quite a bit.

 

Thats the good news.

 

Still are some errors in the whole animation story that I pick up, and if anyone else is keen to do some testing, I would not mind some confirmation of what I am seeing.

 

• the larger-scale textures (index 3 and 4 in the xml file) will only scroll north-to-south, and are not affected by changing wind direction. You can get them to scroll south-to-north by changing fWindScalar3 and 4 to a negative value! So, viewed at higher alts and distances, one has waves either moving on-shore, parallel to shore, or off-shore depending on the coastline direction, The off-shore case is a bit unreal in ocean settings!
• the smaller-scale textures (index 0 to 3, more visible at lower alts and distances) do change direction as wind direction is changed, BUT, except for wind from 270, and 090, the movement is opposite to what one would expect. Set a wind at 180, and the water surface is moving distinctly towards the S (as seen from lower altitudes, or in the foreground of a Spot View)! Change wind to blow from the north, and the water surfaces / waves move towards the north! Not correct! This smacks of a computational problem using computer angles versus geographic angles (computers "think" 0 radians is at 090 = E, geographers and aviators have 0 = 2PI = N! Curse of my life as a geology software developer!). Am trying to fix this, if I can.

Rob

Gents;

 

Further to my finding re: edits of the WaterConstants.xml file.

 

Today I installed REX 4 Texture Direct Service Pack 4, and tested the water animations.

 

Rob

 

 

Rob, perhaps you can 'enlighten' me, here, pls.

 

I messed around with this stuff last night and I'm Not happy. Yes, REX changes the WaterConstant.XML . Good job REX.

 

However here's my issue... I only see water animation at or below 1,000 feet,  AND only when there's wind blowing strongly. Rooobish ! Not good for me. I don't fly at sea level. I fly high and want to see water in action- not a deep blue card-board.

 

Back in the days we could modify these settings but it was from the root XML and not from the Appdata location. More, over, not only could you change water animation, but you could change water color shade, reflection, and 3 different transition altitudes.

 

I need to give it another try and see if I can get water animation from High Altitudes, and not at sea level. I'm flying an airplane - not fishing for tuna  

Just a correction to my previous post.

 

Rex Texture Direct does not owverwrite the WaterConstants.xml file everytime you inject an animation / change the animation.

 

It seems that the new REX WaterConstants.xml is installed when updating to SP4/TU2, once off (and overwrote my experimental version, which I had backed up!)

 

Good in that once you have installed the service pack, you can still make edits to WaterConstants.xml if you want to make your own tweaks, and these will not be lost if you inject a new animation. Also means you do not have to delete your shaders when changing water animations (everytime you make changes to WaterConstants.xml you need to to this).

 

Rob

Rob, perhaps you can 'enlighten' me, here, pls.

 

I messed around with this stuff last night and I'm Not happy. Yes, REX changes the WaterConstant.XML . Good job REX.

 

However here's my issue... I only see water animation at or below 1,000 feet,  AND only when there's wind blowing strongly. Rooobish ! Not good for me. I don't fly at sea level. I fly high and want to see water in action- not a deep blue card-board.

 

Back in the days we could modify these settings but it was from the root XML and not from the Appdata location. More, over, not only could you change water animation, but you could change water color shade, reflection, and 3 different transition altitudes.

 

I need to give it another try and see if I can get water animation from High Altitudes, and not at sea level. I'm flying an airplane - not fishing for tuna  

 

I really cannot understand why you are unable to see animations form above 1000ft, even with the new REX update. Puzzling as I can see them clearly. Yes at 2000-3000 feet one looses the animation effect of the smaller-scaled sets (#0-3), that are wind controlled, but the larger wave patterns are moving on my system (slower with REXs fWindScale values, so not that obvious)

 

Please try again and look carefully.

 

• You need to position yourself over water where you have reference points (coastline with some features, or a harbour wih jettys) - static points against which you will detect the water/waves moving.
• You need to be in Spot View and look around, carefully. Trying to see the slow motion (gets slower the higher you are, relatively). Trying to see the movement while flying is hard. Or if you are hot-shot at hovering a chopper, try that! I never was.

If you still cannot see water/wave motion at higher altitudes, 5000 to 20000ft (lets not talk Jet FLs here - one would not see them really anyhow at the speed one's going), then something must be wrong in your setup.

 

Re: colors there are still SpecularPower, SpecularBlend and SpecularBoost settings in the .xml that one could play with - I have not tried. All the other settings (UV etc), and Low, High, Mid groups that used to be in the old FSX, root version, are gone. Obviously a modification by LM, plus moving the xml to Appdata, that they had their good reasons for doing I guess.

 

Colours are fully controllable in REX ESSENTIALS (where you can recolour water to whatever you want by plankton content, and change brightness, saturation and contrast) or Texture Direct (more limited, but still 18 sets to choose from, with bright, medium and dark variations), so I personally have no problem getting the colour I want.

 

Hope you can find a "happy" setting sooner rather than later!

Yeah I will give it another try and increase the values on all /fwindscalar 0 to 4,

and I guess this will make it more active from high altitudes, correct?

 

What about on the Sim's CFG, do we add or make any changes there?

For CFG settings you must have;

 

Tesselation factor - Ultra

Mesh resolution - 1m

Texture Resolution - 7cm

 

Water Detail - Ultra

 

REX also advise;

 

HDR - ON (I do not have it on as I do not like it - personal perference)

Level of Detail Radius - Max (I have mine at Ultra and animations work, but maybe in you want to push the distances out further and can afford the FPS then try Max)

 

Other settings I have are;

 

Special effects detail - High

Special effects distance - High

Have not changed these while experimenting with water animations so do not know if they play a role in this)

 

I find having Reflections for clouds enabled also helps as can see waves altering edges of cloud reflections on rough water.

 

Rob

Thank you, bro. I will work on this tonight.

 

 

 

Anyone find their favourite texture and wave effect sets yet?

Yes, I was. In fact, that's the easiest way to tell that the textures are as static as a static sheet with a big neon sign above it saying "static textures are here again" :smile:

Watching a bit of Blackadder there, Chris?

Haha, yes.....that's where I got the idea from

REX SP4:  major improvement in at least the first & only texture I installed, which was the Photoreal animation which looked wretched before and now looks quite good!  Nice!

For CFG settings you must have;

 

Rob I am also not seeing any wave animation - tried everything I  know except for a new P3D install any thoughts

Rich , do you have Rex TD ?

Rich , do you have Rex TD ?

 

Gerard I have REX4 installed only latest version - what does TD mean ?