Water color for some rivers and other bodies of water

[Guest GabrielR]

I know it might be a long shot, and I will not be dissapointed if this does not make it into FSX, maybe next version, but I would like to see the brown color on the rivers and lakes instead of the "Pool-like-color" that we see on the rivers in FS9.

[Holger 0]

Hi there,good point!Colors of inland water bodies are difficult to do as there are so many variables that influence them. For oceans at least one can use barymethric data to gradually decrease brightness etc. but most lakes and river colors are much more "dynamic", that is neighbouring lakes can have very differnt colors.Actually, from a developer's stand point I'd like to extend the request: I'd appreciate blending masks for water tiles like the ones used for land class placement (e.g., "001b2m11.bmp"). It's easy enough for an add-on designer to provide realistic water colors via local water class files and textures but the current "simplistic" blending makes adjacent tiles of even moderately different colors look like a rectangular oil slick. Cheers, Holger

[Guest christian]

Holger, I think what we need instead of blending masks is the ability to draw VTP water polygons. And on top of that VTP water lines that handle the blending (I know there is a reef VTP texture in FS9 already, but it doesn't get used).Luis, you can have brown water in FS9 already. Just change the colour of the appropriate water bitmap (not sure which number, but I think it's described in the SDK).Cheers,Christian

[Guest tdragger]

>I know it might be a long shot, and I will not be>dissapointed if this does not make it into FSX, maybe next>version, but I would like to see the brown color on the rivers>and lakes instead of the "Pool-like-color" that we see on the>rivers in FS9.Hmmm. Sounds like it's time for another riddle from "Dr. Flight Sim":How do you tell a river from a lake or an ocean?

[Guest tasnvs]

I would say. A lake or an ocean has a flatten area,where a river slopesCheers

[Guest tdragger]

True, but the slopes had to be added, just like a color would be. So, how do you know what to add slopes to?

[michal 44]

>How do you tell a river from a lake or an ocean?well, this is how it could be done but there are probably other methods too. I assume the water data comes in form of lat/lon of shorelines.Lakes should be easy - you traverse along the coast - if you return to the same point after say less than 1000 miles - it is a lake.For rivers - given a coastal point you draw a normal vector at this location of certain length - say 30 miles. If this vector hits another land point - it is a river. This algorithm could fail in some weird places along some rivers but would probably be fine for 99.9% of cases. It is not diffcult to imagine enhancements. This algorithm could not distinguish rivers from lakes hence lakes would have to be handled simultaneously with rivers.Michael J.http://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/pmdg_744F.jpghttp://sales.hifisim.com/pub-download/asv6-banner-beta.jpg

[Guest christian]

Mike, don't you know your own software? ;)The FS2004 waterclass maps already use different textures for rivers and oceans, ie the rivers/lakes use their own texture set. As I mentioned all one needs to do is turn the appropriate texture brown and it'll work in FS2004 already. If I remember right FS2002 had a brownish texture for inland water, but this has been dropped in FS2004.I guess there is no easy way to tell a river from a lake and maybe you prefered blue lakes over brown rivers, hence changed behavior in FS2004?On a side note, here's a good one: How do you model salty lakes (I have to figure this out at the moment as there a quite a few of them here in Australia)? :)Cheers,Christian

[michal 44]

>I guess there is no easy way to tell a river from a lake It is not a big deal for a smart algorithm to tell the difference (as I outlined above). This pre-processing of scenery takes place not in real time hence you can employ very thorough and time consuming algorithms to get it right.Michael J.http://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/pmdg_744F.jpghttp://sales.hifisim.com/pub-download/asv6-banner-beta.jpg

[Guest Andre_Hedegaard]

Why not make FSX more customizable and in the setup options, under scenery, you can specify what tint of colour you'd like for lakes/sea/oceans?Or leave it at default for the average 'gamer'......

[Guest wingnut2]

No selections please... it should appear as in real life

[Guest christian]

Actually, the river/lake problem is more complex. Rivers become lakes and rivers again, in a lot of cases there isn't even much of a difference between a lake and a river. And how do you mix the colours in transition zones?The only way to get this right is to use some real data, and I've done this and know the problems. Some lakes are feed by glacers and are bright blue. Lakes and Fiords surrounded by forest can have high tannin content and are almost black. Trying to tackle geography with automated algorithms isn't as easy at it seems.Christian

[Guest Andre_Hedegaard]

>No selections please... it should appear as in real lifeSure, I'd like this too, but was thinking of the other users as there will *always* be someone that will prefer another texture colour over the default."in real life", well hmmmm, some people have a hard time differentiating the green & brown colours and monitors/lcd screens each have their own 'flavouring' of the way they portray colours. Although this never seems to be a problem when viewing porno :(

[Guest tdragger]

You're actually very close to the crux of the issue. Well done. The main problem, of course is that vectors are just vectors--they don't have annotations for what they represent. Land/water class helps but it's not a perfect solution due to poor (1km) resolution.I'm hoping I can get my GIS lead to comment on the process we use. If I can I'll post it to my blog in the future.

[michal 44]

>The main problem, of course is that vectors are just>vectorsVectors are not necessary here. This was just an example. Also the issue can be tackled differently - half "manually" - for example given the black/white plot of all coastlines someone could "mark" the river in a few places and algorithm would fill it in intermediate points - in other words the algorithm would do the most tedious and repetitive work. Going through all US/European rivers/lakes this way would probably not take more than a couple of weeks for a single person. Or if using full automation from start one could later visually scan the solution and correct errors - there are many approaches that would get the job done.Michael J.http://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/pmdg_744F.jpghttp://sales.hifisim.com/pub-download/asv6-banner-beta.jpg