I can get rid of ugly waves hitting the shoreline in P3DV5?

 

/Thomas

I usually just delete / move the the wavecontroller.fx and ORBX_wavecontroller.fx located under "Effects"

On 4/15/2020 at 8:25 AM, Sethos said:

I usually just delete / move the the wavecontroller.fx and ORBX_wavecontroller.fx located under "Effects"

Too bad he didn't read your post 5 years ago lol

I know this is an old thread, but don't delete / move effects or textures like this.
It creates extra workload for the sim as it hunts for the missing files and starts to cause performance issues when they're part of a larger number of missing details.
(Seriously, look at your P3D error log on shutdown to see how many files are missing/incorrectly linked by veiwing the ContentErrors.txt file at %userprofile%\Documents\Prepar3D v5 Files).

The better way to remove these waves is to open Terrain.cfg using the program Notepad++

Open the Find and Replace function.

In the Find what field, type: ^Effect(.*)wave(.*)$
In the Replace with field, type: //$0

Important to change the Search Mode to Regular Expression.

Click Replace All.

Repeat the step above, but change the Find what: ^Effect(.*)ocean(.*)$

Click Replace All, then Save and Close.

As always, make a backup of your terrain.cfg before making these changes.

Haha yes, an old post, often old posts are full of very interesting and useful info.

The ContentErrors.txt is a good tip, I always start a newly installed aircraft with ContentErrors.txt enabled just to see if it generates any errors (and then work my way through in fixing what I can).

Good developement doesn't generate errors, e.g. the Aerosoft PBY Catalina was a great aircraft in FSX, however the conversion work to support x64 was appalling, if only the developer had enabled ContentErrors.txt...

Anyway back to shoreline waves, the default are a pretty poor look and I can see why you'd want to disable, however Orbx did create a very good set of replacements.

They are a manual install and I have them installed via the xml method, the vid shows them off.

Cheers

 

 

Edited January 21, 20224 yr by Rogen

Not sure why but I had completely missed this even though the wave action in the sim had at times been not so good - which I put down to the way NVIDIA's wave motion worked.

Installed this as suggested but also the later mod to fix up the wave colouration. 

Much improved and appreciated. 

2 hours ago, Rogen said:

They are a manual install and I have them installed via the xml method, the vid shows them off.

I downloaded the Pacific Northwest Ferries and installed it but I failed to see where do you go to install these new improved waves manually. Can you point me on the right direction?

Thanks.

3 hours ago, Samaritano said:

I downloaded the Pacific Northwest Ferries and installed it but I failed to see where do you go to install these new improved waves manually. Can you point me on the right direction?

Hey Samaritano,

In the root of the Pacific Northwest Ferries install folder you'll find the following folder path... assuming an xml library install that is.

NA Pacific Northwest Ferries\ORBX\FTX_NA\FTX_AA_PNW_FERRIES\Extras

And in extras there is "Global_Orbx_Wave_Effects.zip" and "Instructions for the new wave and surf effects.pdf"

I have them installed under my Orbx Global library via the xml method and the Zip file is the complete package including the xml file below.

Cheers

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<SimBase.Document Type="AddOnXml" version="4,2" id="add-on">
  <AddOn.Name>Orbx Global Wave Effects</AddOn.Name>
  <AddOn.Description>When this addon is enabled, these wave effects will globally replace the older FSX style wave effects</AddOn.Description>
  <AddOn.Component>
    <Category>Effects</Category>
    <Path>Effects</Path>
    <Name>Orbx wave effects</Name>
  </AddOn.Component>
</SimBase.Document>

3 hours ago, coastaldriver said:

Installed this as suggested but also the later mod to fix up the wave colouration.

What's this "later" mod ?

Cheers

Ah there was another contribution which is available via the same thread at ORBX which modified the colouring of the effects to remove some strange colouring outcomes with some waves. Some people had some did not, probably depends on your video card etc. I had that with the first mod by Larry_R (I think he is one of the team at ORBX) which was ok but some waves broke in a black-yellow colour for me, the change merely altered the light colour settings in the effects. They are fine now. Here is a link to the original posting at ORBX. 

 

https://forum.orbxdirect.com/topic/210615-how-to-disable-wave-effects-coast-shoreline-waves/?tab=comments#comment-1784080

Effects files can be disabled by simply adding .OFF to the end of the filename. I have done that for several effects files.

6 hours ago, Christopher Low said:

Effects files can be disabled by simply adding .OFF to the end of the filename. I have done that for several effects files.

Doesn't that cause a resource issue if the effect is expected by another file and it keeps searching for it?  I thought there was a way to flag it in the file itself not to display rather than essentially removing a file the sim may be looking for... 

8 hours ago, Christopher Low said:

Effects files can be disabled by simply adding .OFF to the end of the filename. I have done that for several effects files.

1 hour ago, psolk said:

Doesn't that cause a resource issue if the effect is expected by another file and it keeps searching for it?  I thought there was a way to flag it in the file itself not to display rather than essentially removing a file the sim may be looking for... 

Ahem.
If I can point people to my earlier post in this very thread...

Deleting, moving or renaming files isn't the best method since the sim keeps trying to find the files being called up by a config file.
Better to prevent the files (in this instance, wave effects) from being called up in the first place.

The only problem with the method I've listed is that it needs to be done every time there is a change made in Orbx Central.
The good news is that Notepad++ remembers the text in the find and replace fields, so the whole process takes just a few mouse clicks.
 

I was under the impression that disabling them (as opposed to removing them completely) results in the software ignoring them? There are some files that have to be disabled on my PC to avoid OCD issues

Edited January 22, 20224 yr by Christopher Low

I would love it if Orbx would just add an option in the global config to turn the wave effects off for V5.