Transparent Water

[76IAP-Black]

Hello guys and developers,

 

the water ingame, has some really nice effects and great apperance, but if i crash into a lake, river or now near the Kuban area into the sea, the plane and ships are invisible right under the surface.

 

I was asking myself, how is the landscape build near the rivers and the coastlines, is it possible to make the water little bit transparent? So you can spot a submerged sub, of see a few cm or a meter your plane parts, before it sinks into the deep ... forever.

 

Is the map geometry build a few meters under the sea surface?

 

What do you guys think about it? 

 

Best regards 

 

Martin

[7.GShAP/Silas]

I think I saw this mentioned in another thread, where someone said that creating a transparent top layer on the water and another opaque one beneath it is how it would be done, but too demanding for the return.

 

I suppose that's how they do the shallows, edges of rivers, etc, where you can see the earth through the water?

[Uufflakke]

I have read somewhere that it has to do with technical limitations or so.

But someone with more knowledge about it than I have might give you a clear answer.

 

While searching for the 'transparent water' issue I happened to see that you asked the same question in October and May. 

Let's hope for a definate answer then.

Edited November 27, 2017 by Uufflakke

[76IAP-Black]

Was thinking about it, as pacific was announced, so the idea was, is it planed to implement? Cause the pacific water was very nice the submarines were and are visible, right under the surface, or a crashed plane near the beach.

 

And if yes, is it backwards compatible wit the older maps, so i have no idea how they are build and how deep on the coastlines.

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

The opaque water does not bother me. Yes, it isn’t realistic for all weather and sea conditions. However, it is adequate for the majority of situations.

 

Personally, I would not want better water at the expense of other features. I do understand that this might be important for those interested in submarines.

[xvii-Dietrich]

If an aeroplane crashes, it "de-spawns" pretty quickly, so  transparent water is not so important for those rare occasions that an aircraft crashes in shallow water.

 

And, with one notable exception, there is no historical circumstances for seeing submerged submarines in the Black Sea.

 

However, for the Pacific, I could see that is it slightly more important. However, opaque water is adequate for most situations.

[76IAP-Black]

That was my point, if they build it for the pacific, so why not update the black sea also 

[Gambit21]

The water at the moment is what can be managed at the moment - that should go without saying.

The methodology used to create the current water is apparent to me, as I explained in another thread.

An opaque base layer, and an opaque "sea state" layer with an animated procedural normal map.

It works well enough.

 

Water is not just transparent, it also refracts.

This means the path of those photons must be calculated, as does the subsurface scattering of those photons - that requires CPU cycles. We see this clearly when doing a 3D render in any 3D application.

I'm not sure if the game engine even has this capability - or it does but the real-time rendering is just not fast enough.

 

In either case, I think it should be obvious that we have the current best effort - which is good enough for me.

I know I'll get that visible submerged sub if it becomes possible - if not... so be it.