FU 2/3 Texture/Colour Differences

[Guest]

I have FU3 with FU2 San Fran scenery added and realised today that - with the default graphics settings - the water in the Seattle area is black whilst water in the San Fran area is the normal blue colour [as when FU2 was installed on its own]. The only way I can get the Seattle area water to show as a sensible colour is to increase the Gamma correction to about 7/8 of max. Then, of course, the rest of the scenery and cockpit panels are the incorrect textures and colours.I am running a AMD 2000XP with a GE Force 2 Ultra graphics card so would not expect any graphics problems from the system.V grateful for any help in restoring FU3 water textures to correct colours [is it possible tio import those from FU2?]Many thanks.

[Christopher Low 5,324]

The default Seattle area water textures are indeed a good deal darker than those in the SanFran area, so I do not think that this is a graphics problem.That's ANOTHER reason why I prefer the SanFran scenery :-)Chris Low,ENGLAND.

[Hans_Petter 1]

Both colors are correct and realistic. In general, the water looks darker the further north you go while it's azure blue in the tropics. At least shallow water with a sandy bottom will look light bluish green when viewed from the air. What you really see is the light brown of the sand being filtered through a blue water column. (Water absorbs red and yellow, making everything appear more blue or green than it really is). The color of the water depends on water clarity and depth. Deep clear water will look the color of the sky while shallow water shows the seabed. If algae or silt are present the water may look anything from brown to light green.Thus, there's nothing wrong with the color of either region -- the only thing we'd miss is a gradual transition between the two.best regards,Hans Petter

[Guest glidernut]

I think you exagerat!Iv been flying FU3 fore over 20 yers, and Iv never seen black water.Dark bluw, as aposed to light blue, yes, but not black.Perhaps too dark? well maybe, maybe not? I like it.As to wat is normal or a sensible colour blue? Well Hans Petter put it beter than I can.Any way, Im afraed we are stuk with wat we got.I wish we had more controwl than just the Gamma correction.But we can change the colour of the sky.I would like a beter darker richer blue sky.Can any one help?2 exampls of wat I meen by a beter blue sky.

[Guest glidernut]

Iv just got this blue sky, with this line in the cfg file.AtmosphereThickness 8000000But no mater wat numbers I put on the AtmosphereDensityRatio line,I have no gradiant.And the moon,s gon yelow. And if I use any haze at all, the haze is black.How can I change the sky colour, without changeing everything els?

[Guest]

Many thanks for all the help - agree that it should be darker as we go north; the problem is that its is so dark that there is no depth perception on an approach or when low flying. But, if that is how it was programmed - "c'est la vie" - I was only concerned that my set up was out.

[Christopher Low 5,324]

Hans,Why should water look darker the further north you travel ?Chris Low,ENGLAND.

[Hans_Petter 1]

Partly because the color of the water is really the color of the sky. Clear water is almost colorless. In gloomy weather the sea looks dark bluish gray while bright sunshine with a blue sky gives blue water. Then, when the sun shines from a lower angle you get less light penetrating the water surface and you won't be able to see the seabed. Granted, the azure blue of the tropics is really sand flats reflecting light back up but they will show from a depth of 130 ft or more. This means that a larger area around islands will show up as azure since the light penetrates deeper and reflects back from deeper areas of the seabed. Northern waters tend to be less clear (more nutrients and more algae) and the sun shines at an oblique angle. Both factors pull in the same direction, meaning that you won't be able to see any light being reflected from the deeper sand banks. Hans Petter

[Christopher Low 5,324]

This does of course depend on what time of the day it is, since the Sun can be seen just above the horizon even in the tropics :-)What does the water colour look like in the UK scenery ? This is further north than Seattle, so the water should look darker.......Personally, I'm not convinced that the water in the Seattle scenery should look quite as dark as it does. I suspect that Looking Glass Studios just weren't given the time to optimise this.........or anything else for that matter.Chris Low,ENGLAND.

[JimmiG 244]

LG certainly did "something" to the water in the San Francisco region, that they didn't do in the Seattle region.In early screenshots of FU2, and in one screenshot on the FU2 box, the water is a darker color. Then, they changed it to a brighter blue color.

[Guest glidernut]

[Guest glidernut]

One day I tryed to paint an out dor cean on a very hot day when the sun was at its highest and even with sunglases on I was having to squintall the time cus the sun was so bright.I was paying a grate deal of atenshon to geting the coulers right.and I was asonished to realize that allthow the sky at the horizen wasa light blouw, the sky verticaly abuv me was so dark it was allmost black.The sky in the tropics is even darker, not at the harizen but strate up.The sky in FU3 at the harizen is OK, but strate up its not dark inuf forea hot day.Wel thats my opinion.glidernut.

[Guest twsimfan]

Guys,While many of the more scientific answers have great merrit... the plain fact is that the water in the Sound, the Strait, or along the Washington Coast does not appear black or blue... on a sunny day it appears as a teal green (like the green on the Seahawks uniforms)... on a cloudy day it is more like a OD green (aka "army green"). The only time it appears as dark as it does in FU3 is between sunset & sunrise. ;-) I'll have to post some vacation pics of it... but need to get my scanner hooked to this system first. In the mean time you will have to take my word for it... it is GREEN or TEAL but never BLACK or BLUE... trust me! I grew up around there and go back for a couple of weeks each year. As I remember the color of the water around Brighton & Dover was much the same... but I haven't been to those places since 1976.

[Hans_Petter 1]

I bet we're dealing with algae and I'm looking forward to seeing some vacation pics. Coastal Norwegian waters vary with the season. Typically, the first spring bloom turns the water into green pea soup around April. Later, in May through July, fjords and bays may look "whitish light green" as if somebody had poured milk into the green water. It's really an alga with calcium in its shell (Emiliana Huxleyi among friends). The green chlorophyll + the white of the calcium gives the characteristic hue. Then we get various algae in the fall that may provide a brown or even reddish hue.(These are dinoflagellates and are responsible for "red tides)". Estuarine areas look tawny or brown due to silt. An American example would be the Gulf of Mexico along the coast of Louisiana, Missisippi and eastern Texas. The Missisippi spills tons of mud into this area. In the English UK scenery we see an enriched river Thames that's anything but blue.Hans Petter

[Christopher Low 5,324]

John,I understand your argument, but your comments regarding the "water that flows underneath the Golden Gate Bridge" are not entirely correct. I have just checked my own camcorder footage of this area, and the water colour seems to be a sort of dull green when seen close up, but this changes to pale blue when observing from a distance.However, I do agree that the colour of the water in the San Francisco scenery is rather TOO BLUE :-) Nevertheless, I much prefer this to the very dark blue that is apparent in the Seattle scenery. I very seriously doubt that there is any large body of water in the world that looks as dark as this.Chris Low,ENGLAND.