SS2 Vurt's Water

[665ada621efbavurt]

Tags: °texture °MTL °SS2
Old version (19 frames):

Image: http://piclair.com/data/uy6wt.jpg

Version 3. 70 frames:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNCPLeuNfz0

version 4. Like version 3 but processed further, less transparent, darker, a bit more "hectic".

Image: http://piclair.com/data/ucxo1.jpg

"vanilla inspired version". 30 frames, 512x512:

Image: http://piclair.com/data/nn3ow.jpg

version 5 (30 frames, 512x512. fairly slow moving, most realistic looking version yet). *updated, should now animate more smoothly*

Image: http://piclair.com/data/krnn1.jpg

Pool Water (resource for mods)

Image: http://piclair.com/data/vqc6t.jpg

[665ada621f23fZylonBane]

70 frames? Egad. What's the frame resolution?

[665ada621f32cvurt]

frame resolution? you mean the texture size? 256x256.

[665ada621f43bkrist2]

Nice mod, tried both of them, and also liked the old one best

[665ada621f56avurt]

Added version 3 and a youtube link to how it looks.

[665ada621f668Valiant]

Thanks for a great mod, man.

Everyone appreciates the work you guys do making our old-school games easy on the eyeballs, really helps encourage new playthroughs.

[665ada622066fZylonBane]

frame resolution? you mean the texture size? 256x256.

Then YOU mean "70 textures of animation". 

[665ada62207afvurt]

One texture is one frame, should be pretty obvious to anyone it the same princible as in the old cartoons, 1 piece of paper is one frame.

[665ada6220ad7ZylonBane]

One texture is one frame, should be pretty obvious to anyone

frame resolution?

[665ada6220bf4vurt]

Added a new version which is inspired by the default water, same color value (well, close enough) and has some added artificial lightning.

ZB: not even sure what kind of stupid point you're trying to make, just fuck off and do something creative instead?

[665ada6220e17voodoo47]

is it just me, or is something dithery going on with the latest waters? it's like they are not rendered in 32bit or something. linking png screenshot.

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B6HbtMBk0pYzWVh2VFZzbno0bzg

[665ada6221103ZylonBane]

ZB: not even sure what kind of stupid point you're trying to make, just fuck off and do something creative instead?

First you acted confused that I used "frame" and "texture" interchangeably, then you asserted that obviously they mean the same thing. Pick a stance and stick with it, eh crabbypants?

[665ada62213e1vurt]

is it just me, or is something dithery going on with the latest waters? it's like they are not rendered in 32bit or something. linking png screenshot.

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B6HbtMBk0pYzWVh2VFZzbno0bzg

I think it's because i've darkened the hell out of the textures.. unfortunately this adds artifacts, it doesnt go well together with the transparency. Imo it's no big deal unless you really study it in very close detail. I could also try saving the textures with interpolated alpha, dont know if it would help.

Edit: try V5.. i couldnt spot any artifacts in that one.. it came out pretty good, probably the most realistic version yet.

ZB: "frame resolution" sounded pretty damn strange that's all, wasnt sure you really meant the textures or something entirely different (like a value in the .mtl or something). Can we move on?

[665ada622167cblaydes99]

I'll also be trying this mod tonight. I always enjoy your work, thanks again.

[665ada62217beblaydes99]

Hey vurt, just wondering why you did set an animation rate in the .mtl files? I felt the default SS2/gamesys water animation rate was terrible, so I made sure both .mtl files had "force_ani_settings 1" then I added "ani_rate 60" to both and now the water animates smooth and natural. (this was with water v3)

[665ada62218aavurt]

that doesnt work for the water.. there's no difference using ani_rate 60 or ani_rate 1.. i've checked numerous times using force_ani_settings 1.

[665ada6221a01blaydes99]

Hmm, but it does for me. Using your water v3, I noticed that one of your .mtl files doesn't have the line "force_ani_settings 1" so I added it, as well as adding "ani_rate 60" to each. Try adding both of those lines to each of your .mtl files under /fam/waterhw and watch the magic happen. The water looks almost pixel-shader quality on my system now!

As ani_rate sets the animation rate in milliseconds, I've also experimented with ani_rate 30, ani_rate 100, etc. and ani_rate 60 seems to be the best balance. 30 was nice but just was too fast to feel natural.

I didn't realize that until now no one was seeing the same effect I achived last night. You seriously gotta see this in action, it makes a world of difference.

[665ada6221b1bvurt]

There's no difference between ani_rate 1 and ani_rate 600 when applying it to water, i've tested it numerous times. What you're seeing is most probably placebo. Has anyone else here tried it?

I've used this value a lot when perfecting the ani_rate on the biomatter goo, and there's a huge difference of ani_rate 1 and 600 when this value is working. Look at my youtube videos (both thief and SS2), the animation is perfectly smooth.

[665ada6221de7blaydes99]

There's no difference between ani_rate 1 and ani_rate 600 when applying it to water, i've tested it numerous times. What you're seeing is most probably placebo. Has anyone else here tried it?

Oh, it's most definitely not placebo. When I set animation rate to 250 it's slow and jerky, and something like 60 or 30 and it animates really fast and smooth. I can tell you have a lot of other mods going on your machine so you might have a conflict somewhere that is creating the issue.

I should note that I have all my mods in a "\mods\ss2mods" folder and I then add this path to my cam_mod.ini file. For example, I put "mod_path mods\ss2mods" to enable all mods in this subfolder.

[665ada6221ef5vurt]

really strange, i guess it's because you have made some change to cam_mod.ini, i havent touched my install except for installing v119 and my own mods.

I'll do a reinstall and check to be sure later tonite.

[665ada622201cZylonBane]

Don't reinstall just yet. Setting the animation rate for water does work. Post the MTL file you're using here, and/or try putting some other commands in it to verify that it's actually controlling the texture.

Don't forget that the material system allows multiple texture passes. So you can increase randomness by layering two texture sequences with a different frame count. But with that sort of thing comes the need to be aware of how much VRAM your animation is chewing up.

[665ada622215bvurt]

Do you have an example of how a layered .mtl file would look? That would be very interesting to try for sure, can i use 2 different textures also you mean?

I've tried every possible combination for water.. right now i have this in blin.mtl:

force_ani_settings 1
terrain_scale 256
ani_rate 255

255 was just to test and it's as smooth as ever. scale works without problems, also ani_rate works for the goo but for the water i've never gotten it to work, not on this new install and not on the previous.. maybe i'm missing something, i didnt install that ss2tool v4.4 or whatever its called again.

[665ada6222348blaydes99]

You aren't still using DDfix by any chance are you? At any rate, I hope you can figure it out. I'd like to see this water as you intended it.

Note from /doc/material-format.txt (not really for you vurt but some important info for all modders):
ani_rate <int>
--------------

    Animation rate, specified as milliseconds per frame, for animated textures. Default is 250.
    The "Texture Anim Data" property in DromEd overrides any material setting, unless "force_ani_settings" is
    set. If the texture isn't animated the parameter is ignored. This parameter only has an effect on objects
    where "Texture Anim Data" would also have an effect.

    Ex:
        ani_rate 33


There's then a whole bunch of sweet goodness in the render_pass { ... } section (covers all render passes, etc.)

[665ada6222464vurt]

You were absolutely right, it does work.. i reinstalled and did everything by the book including drag/drop the sshock folder and then SS2tool v.4.4, now it works. Yes 60 actually does improve it even slightly from how it looked before Nice. I'll update the mod with the new settings.

Just checked Thief 2, it's the same thing there, at ani_rate 255 it's still very smooth.. doh.. guess i'll have to reinstall it too. Very odd, it's also a fresh install.