Rheinland still under development?

[AEthelraedUnraed]

Yes, you can place surface files underneath the water, and to some extent it'll work, but then you'll likely get some artifacts, as you've found out. That's also not the way the Devs have created the different water colours, as far as my knowledge goes. The exact fact that "the Rheinland map is the only map where this is not possible" is a good pointer: Rheinland uses the exact same terrain and surface shaders as all the other maps. What's different? Exactly: the water files.

 

If you take a look at the water maps, you'll find all those "coastal" areas to have a different value than the normal water. This too is a pointer to how it's done.

 

Again, surfaces glitching under water is not a bug. It's just using surface files for things they're not meant for.

 

EDIT: anyhow, you've at least convinced me to double-check my claims. It should be relatively easy to check whether there's any kind of surface at play here, and perhaps, if time allows, I can even mess around a bit with the water files themselves. 

Edited December 15, 2022 by AEthelraedUnraed

[AEthelraedUnraed]

On 12/15/2022 at 10:00 PM, Jeroen83 said:

Sorry Aethel, but this is not true.

 

In the Normandy map, the water CAN and HAS been edited by adding textures and this creates a very lifelike effect, when used with the proper specular and transparency effect.

 

The dev team has done this themselves at ie the harbours and river exits in the North Sea to create nice depth effects. It is also present in the Kuban map. Rheinland map is the only map where this is not possible.

Did a bit more testing. It's a relatively long post, so I put it under a spoiler tag:
 

Spoiler

First, I messed up the surface and mesh files by invalidating its texture links:

As you can see, the landscape surfaces are completely messed up (as is expected) (note that much of the terrain doesn't consist of surfaces, which is why not everything is white). The subtle colour differences near the coast are completely intact, however, and look as they always did.

 

Next, I played around with the water map, using grey values (note: not on the Normandy map, so the exact colours are slightly different):

It's apparent that the water map colour does indeed influence the water colour. From the slight difference in colour of both shapes in both map and result, it becomes apparent that the water map colour is in fact a measure for the water colour. The exact relationship isn't explicitly given in the water maps, and can differ between maps: on the Kuban water (used here) the water map brighness seems to inversely relate to the water depth, but that's not the case for the Normandy map below. I haven't investigated where and how this relationship is defined yet.

 

Lastly, we take a look at the water map for Dover harbour:

We see, as expected, that the brightness of the water map corresponds nicely to the colour of the in-game map.

 

Final test: change the water map of Dover, and check the result:

As expected here. No surface edits done whatsoever.

 

So the results confirm my hypothesis that it is indeed the water maps that control the water colour. Also, it confirms that this is how the Devs created the effects of the Normandy and Kuban maps, as opposed to using surfaces.

 

In other words, what I said above still stands: you *can*, in some circumstances, use surface files beneath the water to change its colour. However, this is not the way it's supposed to be done, and as a result you may come across glitches. Not a bug, just a consequence of using things outside of their intended use case.

 

(The fact that the sea has the exact same colour as land in the water maps is interesting, and means the Devs have switched to some other system than they used in the past. I haven't had the time to investigate, but it's worth noting that the Normandy map seems to contain 5 diffent maps as opposed to the 3 of prior maps.)

[Jeroen83]

Aethel, nice presentation. I didn´t know about the existence of the water maps and it is clear to me now that the devs used this for the effects.

 

Now, as I said I do know that its possible to create similar effects like the water maps using plain old surface editing on the Normandy map. 

 

So, the question is, can you alter the water maps on the rheinland map to create similar effects as in Normandy? Using surface editing it's unfortunately not possible.

[AEthelraedUnraed]

On 12/17/2022 at 10:58 PM, Jeroen83 said:

So, the question is, can you alter the water maps on the rheinland map to create similar effects as in Normandy? Using surface editing it's unfortunately not possible.

I did some more testing. The good news is: yes, you can. The bad news is: I don't know how (yet).

 

I edited the water map for IJmuiden harbour, using similar colours as are used on the Normandy map (the reason for choosing IJmuiden being that it's pretty easy to find, and is nicely located in the center of its tile). I also copied waterdesc.txt and all the sea*.txt files from Normandy (just to be sure, although I don't think they've got anything to do with this). This was the result:

You can see my changes *did* have some effect. However, there's now a huge sandbank (or rather, grassbank) located right in front of the harbour. That was quite unexpected. So, apparently Rheinland has a different link between colours (or rather, water depth) and the water map as Normandy does.

 

I'll see if I can find out where and how this linkage is defined. To be continued....

Edited December 18, 2022 by AEthelraedUnraed

[Jeroen83]

9 hours ago, AEthelraedUnraed said:

I did some more testing. The good news is: yes, you can. The bad news is: I don't know how (yet).

 

I edited the water map for IJmuiden harbour, using similar colours as are used on the Normandy map (the reason for choosing IJmuiden being that it's pretty easy to find, and is nicely located in the center of its tile). I also copied waterdesc.txt and all the sea*.txt files from Normandy (just to be sure, although I don't think they've got anything to do with this). This was the result:

You can see my changes *did* have some effect. However, there's now a huge sandbank (or rather, grassbank) located right in front of the harbour. That was quite unexpected. So, apparently Rheinland has a different link between colours (or rather, water depth) and the water map as Normandy does.

 

I'll see if I can find out where and how this linkage is defined. To be continued....

This is amazing. Can you point out where and how these files are edited? Is there any information written about this?

[AEthelraedUnraed]

On 12/19/2022 at 12:16 AM, AEthelraedUnraed said:

However, there's now a huge sandbank (or rather, grassbank) located right in front of the harbour. That was quite unexpected. So, apparently Rheinland has a different link between colours (or rather, water depth) and the water map as Normandy does.

I found the culprit. It's actually the heightmap that's non-zero at that position. Apparently there's some interplay between the heightmap, possibly the water heightmap as well, and the water map. Not sure how it works, exactly, but if the water map "altitude" goes below a certain point (possibly added to the water heightmap?), the landscape will show. That's what happened with the "grassbank" in front of IJmuiden.

 

Downside is that this limits our possibilities since we cannot edit the heightmap (the game will refuse to load an edited one). The upside is that, once you know how to use this to your advantage, you can do some nice things with it.

 

Inundated Walcheren test:

 

EDIT: more pics of the inundation test

 

  

15 hours ago, Jeroen83 said:

This is amazing. Can you point out where and how these files are edited? Is there any information written about this?

Yes, I can. It'll be in a future revision of my Surface Editing Guide. The problem is that it requires an old version of the Mission Editor that's not publically available anymore, and I don't know if it'd constitute a EULA breach if I'd publicly distribute it. @Wardog5711 Could you perhaps clarify this? Is it allowed to put an old version of the Mission Editor on, say, Mediafire?

 

I can send you the preliminary guide on how to do it however. You'll get a PM in a short while.

Edited December 20, 2022 by AEthelraedUnraed

[MAJ_stug41]

Inundated/flooded maps would be great for some scenarios, because the germans flooded large areas of the low country while retreating. That in mind, is the DUKW modeled? ?

 

[Wardog5711]

@AEthelraedUnraed Don't  do anything with this until you hear back from me via PM.

I will have to run this through the home office and they may not get back to me right away. 

 

Quote

I don't know if it'd constitute a EULA breach if I'd publicly distribute it. @Wardog5711 Could you perhaps clarify this? Is it allowed to put an old version of the Mission Editor on, say, Mediafire?

 

[AEthelraedUnraed]

1 hour ago, stug41 said:

Inundated/flooded maps would be great for some scenarios, because the germans flooded large areas of the low country while retreating.

My thoughts exactly ?

 

1 hour ago, Wardog5711 said:

@AEthelraedUnraed Don't  do anything with this until you hear back from me via PM.

I will have to run this through the home office and they may not get back to me right away. 

 

 

Of course, I understand. That's exactly the reason I asked

If it's any help to explain why this is necessary, this is the function that's needed:

 

It was removed in an update a while ago, a year or two or so I think? I understand why they removed it, since the other functions in the Maps category weren't enabled anyhow, but that was before surface editing progressed and the export function became useful again.

[Jeroen83]

This is very cool and opens up major possibilities. Thanks for tour efforts. Just for my understanding: do the height maps actually alter the height of the water or do they change the waters appearance, as if it were either deep or shallow, essentially making it a colour map? Except for the interaction with the terrain height map of course…

one other thing: what happens when you surface edit the terrain of the grass bank you created in front of Ijmuiden? If you’d be able to give it a wet sand appearance, it would truly be a sandbank!

[AEthelraedUnraed]

8 hours ago, Jeroen83 said:

This is very cool and opens up major possibilities. Thanks for tour efforts. Just for my understanding: do the height maps actually alter the height of the water or do they change the waters appearance, as if it were either deep or shallow, essentially making it a colour map? Except for the interaction with the terrain height map of course…

At this moment I'm not quite sure myself anymore. What is certain is the following:

- The (water) height maps do change the height of the water and it is possible to create "hills" of water. 

- The water maps acts as a colour map over a constant terrain heightmap. I.e. if you have flat terrain, the water map determines its colour.

 

However, there's also some interdependency between the heightmap and water map. At this moment, my working theory is that the water map added to the water heightmap determines the water height, which has to be higher than the surface height for water to show up, with the addendum that a water map value of white will always make water show.

 

8 hours ago, Jeroen83 said:

one other thing: what happens when you surface edit the terrain of the grass bank you created in front of Ijmuiden? If you’d be able to give it a wet sand appearance, it would truly be a sandbank!

That would create the appearance of a sandbank, yes. Except that there's not supposed to be any sandbanks there ?

[Hamaha15]

On 12/19/2022 at 12:16 AM, AEthelraedUnraed said:

I edited the water map for IJmuiden harbour, using similar colours as are used on the Normandy map (the reason for choosing IJmuiden being that it's pretty easy to find, and is nicely located in the center of its tile).

'Dag,

 

did you edit Ijmuiden roads' waters only - or are you also working on Ijmuiden city? I ask because that's part of the NL map update I am working on. Just to avoid double effort...

 

Cheers