Unreallistic Oceans - no white foam

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

As mentioned previously in this thread there is a post on the official ORBX forum that explains how to improve the shoreline waves. The first step is to rename the default fx file, so if you stop at that you won't have any shoreline waves.

[Oliver Ooi 85]

https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/sebby1234/2007/11/08/flight-simulator-x-accelerationsp2-water-dx10-vs-dx9/

ACES managed to add whitecaps to water shader when they worked on FSX DX10, so I think we will see enhanced water shader in future P3D.

[Nemo 1,305]

7 hours ago, jabloomf1230 said:

As mentioned previously in this thread there is a post on the official ORBX forum that explains how to improve the shoreline waves. The first step is to rename the default fx file, so if you stop at that you won't have any shoreline waves.

Thanks. Did you mean this: https://orbxsystems.com/forum/topic/151969-orbx-wave-effects-an-unofficial-beta-test/

 

[GSalden 4,655]

22 minutes ago, Nemo said:

Thanks. Did you mean this: https://orbxsystems.com/forum/topic/151969-orbx-wave-effects-an-unofficial-beta-test/

 

Strangely no before/after pics or vid...

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

The ORBX waves are a bit slower.

[Christopher Low 5,332]

Those shoreline waves are rubbish, so they have been removed from my PC in P3D v3.4. As for the open water at altitude, the problem with it is that it looks too static. In fact, the default water at altitude looks a lot like coastal mud with lines in it when the tide has gone out. Not realistic at all. Whether waves can be discerned at altitude or not in the real world is a moot point. Your eye can detect extremely subtle movement even when the detail is not easily detectable.....and that is what needs to be accounted for in the simulator. FSX had a kind of shimmering effect (which may have been purely accidental), but some developers (I am thinking REX here) found a way to enhance this effect to create a much more realistic interpretation of water movement at altitude. Sadly, those same texture improvements when used in P3D are absolutely useless

Edited November 7, 2018 by Christopher Low

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

The ocean appearance in P3d4 relies on a number of factors. At low elevation, the Triton SDK is used to generate wave physics. The rendering of the ocean water though, is done directly by P3d. At higher elevation, the ocean becomes more or less a flat surface and the appearance depends on the textures that are being used. I have found that either of the EnvTex photorealistic textures look pretty good. The whole complaint about whitecaps is somewhat overblown in my opinion, because in the real world whitecaps are not visible at high elevation.

[GSalden 4,655]

3 hours ago, jabloomf1230 said:

The ocean appearance in P3d4 relies on a number of factors. At low elevation, the Triton SDK is used to generate wave physics. The rendering of the ocean water though, is done directly by P3d. At higher elevation, the ocean becomes more or less a flat surface and the appearance depends on the textures that are being used. I have found that either of the EnvTex photorealistic textures look pretty good. The whole complaint about whitecaps is somewhat overblown in my opinion, because in the real world whitecaps are not visible at high elevation.

+1

This is flightsimulator, not boat simulator ... 

[Bobsk8 12,521]

29 minutes ago, GSalden said:

+1

This is flightsimulator, not boat simulator ... 

I wonder if P3D will have submarine races someday? 

[John_Cillis 2,406]

On 11/4/2018 at 8:24 AM, kiki said:

Absolutely! Or even next 3-5 years! 

This is where I started my simming 🙂

https://fshistory.simflight.com/fsvault/msfs4.htm

 

Sadly it does not work under 64 bit Windows, too bad, I loved FS4 and Flight Assignment ATP both.  It was the sim that inspired me to finally buy a Packard Bell PC and drop my Atari ST, although I kept the Atari Running until I sold it.

John

[vgbaron 3,491]

Set water to ultra and get some very high winds - then fly a few hundred feet over the water - you'll see some very big waves with white caps and all sorts of good stuff. A little heavy on the system but fun to do every now and then.

 

Vic

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

2 hours ago, vgbaron said:

Set water to ultra and get some very high winds - then fly a few hundred feet over the water - you'll see some very big waves with white caps and all sorts of good stuff. A little heavy on the system but fun to do every now and then.

 

Vic

True. Vic, you'd think that after all the  P3d screenshots that have been posted  here of the sea surface during ASP4 hurricanes that people would have realized that the simulated ocean looks quite realistic in high winds. I think some people are expecting to see white caps on the ocean when flying at 20,000 feet in the air.

[Christopher Low 5,332]

We are talking about subtle water movement at altitude, not staring hurricane driven waves in the face at 50 feet. The fact remains that FSX (possibly totally by accident) simulated the shimmering effect of light on water a lot better than P3D does, and REX Essential Plus enhanced that effect quite considerably on my PC.

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

Chris, you added the shimmering issue to the original complaints about the appearance of P3d water. I won't argue that FSX looked more realistic in that regard but I also agree that it was probably not by design.

The issues of foam lines and whitecaps are those to be discussed with a grain of sea salt.  It think that it's more important for LM to spend it's "water" coding resources on how seaplanes take off and land rather than on the visual condition of the seven seas. If I was a software pirate I might think differently.😉

[Christopher Low 5,332]

I completely agree with you regarding the floatplane physics. The Flight Unlimited series did a better job of simulating that twenty years ago!