Water reflections way over the top

[Volant_Eagle]

I've had IL-2 for a long time but I've only recently have been getting into flying it much. One thing that sticks out to me like a sore thumb every time I play BoX is how clouds are always so vividly reflected from water surfaces. I'm a real life pilot with over 2,000 hours and I regularly fly over bodies of water (The great lakes usually). I don't think I've ever once in real life seen a cloud reflect off a water surface like in BoX.  At least not when there's as much surface disturbance as is shown in game. Sure, in some situations water will act like a mirror but it has to be pretty darn calm for that to happen. It could happen on a small lake or a stagnant river on a nearly calm day. Outside of that you'll basically never see a cloud's reflection off water from an airplane. Larger bodies of water (like Lake Michigan or the English Chanel) are essentially never calm enough to achieve that sort of reflective effect. Sun glare and shadows always show up very clearly on water as seen from the air, actual reflections of stuff though . . . pretty rare. Which brings up another issue that irks me every time I look at water in game: no shadows! Clouds cast shadows on ground but not on water? What's up with that? It kind of actually boggles my mind that I haven't seen anyone else complain about these things yet. I don't want to sound rude, but with how common it is for people to fly, and even more so how easy it is to see a picture taken from a plane on the internet, I really can't see how water ever got rendered this way in the first place.

 

I'm not saying I necessarily want the reflectivity of water to be totally removed from the game. As I stated above, there are some instances where it would or could happen. For those few situations where it would make logical sense, it would be pretty cool to all the sudden look over and see the scenery reflected off a still patch of water.  Though I could see making different types of water with different visually qualities might not be the best return on effort or use of computing power. Especially for a game that's primarily about combat not sight seeing. However, to be honest, I am saying that if it can't be isolated to just those rare instances, the game would look far better without any reflective water at all . . . and the shadow thing fixed.

 

Does anyone else have any opinions on this? Agree/disagree? Just think I'm way too picky?

[spreckair]

I haven't noticed this, but probably because I am too busy trying hard not to get shot down.  I will certainly take a look next time.

[Ouky1991]

6 hours ago, Volant_Eagle said:

Does anyone else have any opinions on this? Agree/disagree? Just think I'm way too picky?

 

You definitely are not picky. A lot of graphics elements are very dated, especially compared to MSFS and DCS. I was hoping they would at least rework the water rendering with the BoN, since the map has so much water. I can't even fly with clouds enabled over water because of how bad it looks.

 

Also many effects look realy off in this game, but maybe it's a matter of personal taste. I really dislike the speed of burning animation -  if you hit a ship, the smoke rises so fast, it looks like miniature. Also the newish effect of plane impacting the ground looks IMO much worse then the old one.

 

I hope they'll update some of it before abandoning this game and moving onto the next project.

[[CPT]Crunch]

Yeah, there's a one shoe size fits all approach to most of the visuals.  Like the sun glare blazing as high noon no matter where the suns positioning and the time of day is.  You get those utterly blinding sun rises and sets even in winter northern maps like your in Hawaii at high noon.

[Ribbon]

36 minutes ago, [CPT]Crunch said:

Yeah, there's a one shoe size fits all approach to most of the visuals.  Like the sun glare blazing as high noon no matter where the suns positioning and the time of day is.  You get those utterly blinding sun rises and sets even in winter northern maps like your in Hawaii at high noon.

 

Its not sun, it's pulsar pointing beams at you!

 

In VR it is terrible, no matter of the sun position it blinds one lens completely in minimum 30% playtime.....IRL eyes adjust, eyelids adjust etc. but in il2 VR one lens goes blinding white.

IMO they basically downgraded graphics in il2 in the last year or so....at the cost of performance lol.

 

I hope they will learn from the mistakes for their next project!

[IckyATLAS]

I did mention this long ago when they changed the way that lighting was handled. 

The reflections on water (Kuban black sea) were somewhat better before that change.

Handling of water bodies is really not the main interest of the devs. They were used to Stalingrad, Moscow which are except for some lakes and rivers basically land simulations. In Rheinland the sea is rubbish. In Normandy it is a little better but still it is poorly managed. There is no connection to wind and direction for the waves. 

Kuban is one of the best maps, but waves, direction, water transparency and reflections are really bad. This can be also seen with how ships are handled in rough seas. When the sea is calm it is acceptable, but in rough seas the behavior of the ships small and large is very poorly simulated.

This can be also a reason not to do the pacific, were you have atolls, islands with lagoons, and from above transparency were you see the coral reefs, and the waves, all that has to be excellent as the map is mainly sea. The main objects are ships of all kind and sizes and submarines. The simulation of their motion in sea calm or rough must be excellent as it becomes one of the main visual elements.

[Han]

Offcourse there are clouds reflections in water surfaces IRL.

 

But they much more diffuse than you can notice them in simulators. Its because making diffuse reflections is not cheap in terms of FPS. Every such feature has its cost. So what sims have now - is a best compromise.

 

 

 

[=SqSq=SignorMagnifico]

26 minutes ago, Han said:

Offcourse there are clouds reflections in water surfaces IRL.

 

But they much more diffuse than you can notice them in simulators. Its because making diffuse reflections is not cheap in terms of FPS. Every such feature has its cost. So what sims have now - is a best compromise.

 

 

 

Thanks for the info, Han. Would the performance impact of diffuse water reflections be more manageable if IL-2 were to implement ray tracing?

[BlitzPig_EL]

Thanks for the video Han.  Nice view of St. Petersburg at the end.

[Noisemaker]

20 hours ago, Han said:

Offcourse there are clouds reflections in water surfaces IRL.

 

But they much more diffuse than you can notice them in simulators. Its because making diffuse reflections is not cheap in terms of FPS. Every such feature has its cost. So what sims have now - is a best compromise.

 

Spoiler

 

 

What is this and where is it available?

[Volant_Eagle]

On 2/6/2023 at 3:13 PM, Han said:

Offcourse there are clouds reflections in water surfaces IRL.

 

But they much more diffuse than you can notice them in simulators. Its because making diffuse reflections is not cheap in terms of FPS. Every such feature has its cost. So what sims have now - is a best compromise.

Great video! Fits the topic perfectly. I hadn't really thought about the specific issue with diffusing images in real time. Makes sense that it could be pretty costly performance wise.

 

I think the video really just shows exactly what I was saying though. The wind in this video must be about 3 knots at most. At 3:00 there's a flag visible which for the most part is just hanging completely still. It does pick up and move around a few times though so there must be some light gusts. The trees also don't seem to be moving and even the clouds look to be standing still.

 

A lot of the rivers and small lakes do look like almost perfect mirrors. That clear undiffused reflection is only given when they're perfectly flat and still though. Those same lakes and rivers also have plenty of patches of disturbed water. They're more like ripples than waves and even that is enough to greatly diffuse the reflection in those areas. However, I won't deny a diffused reflection is still a reflection. 

 

I think what throws me off with the water visuals in game is the water is giving reflections so clear that they could only come from perfectly still water. But at the same time the water ISN'T still. If the water was rendered glassy smooth then it would actually look just about perfect. That would also fix the no shadow issue as you can't really see a shadow cast on a mirror. However, the obvious problem with doing that is the wind would always need to be set to zero for that to make any sense. As with even 3 knots the water isn't still anymore and the reflections are starting to get very diffused.

 

At some point the wind will cause large enough waves that not even diffused reflections can be seen. I'm not sure exactly where that point is, but by the time white caps are visible I think it's past that point. And it doesn't take all that much wind before waves start to crest. The Beaufort Wind Scale shows this starting to happen at only 7-10 knots which is also classified as a "gentle breeze".

 

Beaufort Wind Scale: https://www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/html/beaufort.shtml

 

My personal assessment is that force 0 on the scale is the only place where clear reflections are reliably seen. Forces 1 and 2 should have certainly visible yet very diffused reflections. Force 3 and anything above I don't think should show recognizable sky reflections if any. Force 3 is just a typical day at least where I live. That's why I suggested possibly not bothering with rendering reflections on water. Not because I don't want any reflections ever, but because I'd rather not have them the few times they should be there, than have them everywhere all the time wherever I go.

 

I understand certain things take priority and therefore compromises have to be made. However, I've flown other contemporary sims (Can't speak for all of them though) and none of the other ones I've flown render water as reflectively as great battles.