FSWC's back in progress!

[pwheeler]

Hi guys,

like Nick I've been going over the water shader with a fine tooth comb. All you can manipulate regarding the reflections is the overall intensity. Unfortunately this includes the sky reflections and the fresnel modification that this shader is all about. By reducing it all you get is a flat water texture.

In order to actually improve the reflections I think we'll have to start looking at the terrain shaders. From what I can work out most of the reflections seem to be defined in these shaders although I too am no shader expert.

What we really want is to reduce the intesity of the cloud reflections and the terrain reflection while leaving the sky reflections (the bit that makes the fresnel mod look cool!) as they are. However I'm not sure this is going to be possible.

However, what may be possible is to modify what is actually reflected. As we know the different water shader settings reflect different parts of the terrain. I think this is controlled in the different terrain shader files. So it may be possible to turn off the cloud reflections. While not perfect  I think it will probably improve the look over the overly intense cloud reflections we currently have. It will hopefully improve the performance too!

I real life the amount of reflections is also dependant on the wave size and frequency. I have tried some more intense wave animations in FEX but they don't really improve it much. The higher frequency wave animations don't look too good due to the resolution I run FSX at. This would probably look much better at very high resolutions or very high Antialiasing settings.

Anyway, I'm still working on it.

Cheers, Paul.

[Ashton Lawson]

If you work out the intensity of reflections, so terrain and clouds show up more or less depending on roughness, if there is no shader code way to tie them together, I can have my progam edit the values in conjunction with one another, provided it be static.

[Ashton Lawson]

Okay, since I've made a few performance enhancements, and visual enhancements, I'm listing them.

Inrease performance when using water reflecting terrain:
Open the Shader Files 'TerrainWaterReflect.fx', 'TerrainLandWaterReflect.fx', and 'TerrainLandWaterLandDetailReflect.fx'.
In them, replace:

Code: Select all

ColorWriteEnable = Red | Green | Blue | Alpha;

with:

Code: Select all

//ColorWriteEnable = Red | Green | Blue | Alpha;
      ColorWriteEnable = Red | Green | Blue;

This tells the cubemap to forget processing the alpha map of the terrain, because the terrain either has no alpha map, or places where the terrain is alpha-blended are culled from the cubemap's render point.

[pwheeler]

Hey,

good work there Str1ker. I only had time for a quick test.

I tried removing the alpha entry in the shader files you suggested. Actually I tried removing it from all the other shader files there. It seemed to make no difference to the appearance of the sim. However, I didn't really notice a big fps increase either. This might be quite gpu dependant and also dependant on which water setting you're using.

Which water setting are you using Str1ker, and what is your gfx card?

I'm running a radeon X1950XT (need to beef this up a bit) on 2x low most of the time - although I test with the other 2x settings too.

Just a thought, but maybe the different terrainlandwaterreflect(etc.).fx files are related to the different water settings. Maybe 2x low calls terrainlandwaterreflect.fx and 2x mid calls terrainlandwaterdetailreflect.fx etc...

Anyway, don't have a lot of time to investigate. I should be able to have another look tomorrow night.

Keep working on it guys. We'll get there.

Paul

[Ashton Lawson]

Well, my water is set to Max at the moment, and here's my specs:
E4500
2GB DDR2 667MHz RAM
GeForce 7600GS 256MB

Everyting is stock speeds.

Also, I know how to test if different settings use different files, as in TerrainWaterReflect, TerrainLandWaterReflect, Detail, blah blah blah.

In each one, only enable one colour, so, Red for one, Green for the other, then Blue.  With that, switch between different water settings (which'll be fast thankfully) and see if the cubmap colour changes.

BTW, try the bloom hack, it's awesome.  No more star!

[Ashton Lawson]

We can change the clouds' intensities, so they don't look soo blocky:
Default Clouds


Tenth Intensity Clouds


Very subtle differences I know, so save Default into Paint, then copy the tenth one and paste is in paint.  Then just alternate between Ctrl+Z and Ctrl+V to see, essentially alternating pictures.

I know the difference is very subtle, and I mean very, but it makes things look just that little bit smoother, I feel.  I'm still experimenting with the shader though, so I might find some more little clues.

And I've decided, we should change from FSWc to FSSC for FS Shader Configurator.  In fact, since we're going for a name change, think of a better word to replace Configurator.  Preferably a word that actually exists...

[NickN]

Low altitude clouds are not the issue, its when you get above 1500+ they really need to be diffused

As a matter of fact, I would be happy if the very high reflections only show at 500ft and under as they should and even then clould reflections should still be diffused.

[Ashton Lawson]

Is there a way to decrease the size of the envmap for the water?

if we could, we could tell try telling the sim to use high res when close to the water, but low-res the higher you go, so it's more like a faded look, but there doesn't seem to be anywhere where you can do anything about envmap size.

the only possibility is making a plugin for fsx that changes the envmap size from within the sim itself.

oh, another thing, I just tried swapping the static reflection texture for aircraft, with the one used for water.  it doesn't work.

[Ashton Lawson]

Right, Paul, Nick, this thing's for you, especially if you don't like to have to always open up the Shader Cache directory.

Download Shader Cache Clearer (8 KB)
(if you use a download manager, click cancel initially)

I've just written it, it works fine in XP, should work in Vista, should support all languages, and it should work fine in both 32 and 64-bit, so there you go.

[pwheeler]

Couldn't unzip the file. It seems to be corrupt. Good idea though!!

I've thoroughly tested the removing alpha channel tweak and it doesn't seem to make any difference on my system. Maybe this fix is nvidia specific.

I'm beginning to think that what is reflected at the different water settings may be hard coded in the sim, which is a real shame. If it is then I don't think we'll be able to alter the intesity of the individual reflections either, just the whole thing.

I may be wrong and I'll keep looking anyway.

Paul

[Ashton Lawson]

Hold on, let me fix the zip, i have a rough idea of what's happened.

As for being hard coded into the sim, that's why I think we could make a plugin which can edit insim variables, like the envmap resolution, and stuff like that.

[Ashton Lawson]

Yeah, I know, the other buttons are still normal, I'm working on their sprites.

The final thing to do now, is actually have those images change when the mouse rolls over them and such, because having controls that stay the same all the time is rather silly.

[NickN]

The SCC program works but it deletes the entire terrain folder

I suggest it not do that and only delete the contents

Also, always remember it is best to back up the original contents of anything that is to be cleared in case someone want to revert. Its always the best practice to restore to the original files and contents if someone decides to not use the product.

Dont assume that because something works for 500 that it will work for everyone. Always back things up for a full restore just in case the minority come across a serious problem.


I still believe my original assessment that editing the ENV files is the key to finishing this puzzle. I am in the middle of GEX texture upgrades so I do not have time to go into them right now.

[Ashton Lawson]

The SCC program works but it deletes the entire terrain folder

I suggest it not do that and only delete the contents

Also, always remember it is best to back up the original contents of anything that is to be cleared in case someone want to revert. Its always the best practice to restore to the original files and contents if someone decides to not use the product.

Dont assume that because something works for 500 that it will work for everyone. Always back things up for a full restore just in case the minority come across a serious problem.


I still believe my original assessment that editing the ENV files is the key to finishing this puzzle. I am in the middle of GEX texture upgrades so I do not have time to go into them right now.

Uh, the SCC Program is just for us, so you know.

[Ashton Lawson]

Well, I lived up to my word (sort of anyway), and so I present the preview image with all the buttons looking the way they should, and yes, they all behave like regular buttons, changing with the mouse rollover, clicking, etc. etc. so that's great for me.