Water water everywhere, and not a drop to drink......

HiFlyer · October 3, 2017 at 6:03 AM

Because it's a flat texture!

So anyway, I was thinking about water and water masks, while flying over AF New York today, and was wondering about all the intricate little nooks and crannies that will need to be filled very very precisely if Aerofly is ever to have accurate water......

This started me looking around (sheer curiosity) for water databases, and I bumped into this, fairly quickly: https://lpdaac.usgs.gov/dataset_discov…ts_table/mod44w

Which got me speculating: what types of datasets does Ipacs envision eventually using when/if it gets around to doing water for the sim?

Curious minds want to know!

AOB · October 3, 2017 at 9:20 AM

You are right you do have a curious mind Just kidding. The lack of water texture is one of the reasons stopping me from reinstalling the game to my PC. I can imagine the 160gb download and seeing a 200 gb update the following week. I might do it anyway later this week.

Overloaded · October 3, 2017 at 12:18 PM

That must be why they were so fond of the dessert areas!

Jet-Pack (IPACS) · October 3, 2017 at 12:34 PM Official Post

Personally I prefer the current water over some monotone colored water based on land class. The shores have these nice white-ish color of the breaking waves, sure that is not animated but at least it looks photo realistic. However there are areas where the water is already masked over with a constant blue color, yeah that needs a lot more variation!

Overloaded · October 3, 2017 at 1:07 PM

It's like an overcast day now in FS2 but with a fixed static light bias based on the lighting direction in a still photograph. The local surface illumination and reflections do not vary with aircraft movement and the direction of the sun or brightest clouds, actually you can fly from a light to a dark surface with apparent constant lighting conditions on a constant heading, like an insect walking over a photograph.

I would prefer the current set up to oversized fast moving giant super swell like undulations.

Practically fixed, true-size waves with specular lighting changes from moving illumination angles caused by the aircraft passage would ... reflect how I saw open water waves.

Not easy to see between the Rhine and Stuttgart?

HiFlyer · October 3, 2017 at 2:36 PM

Quote from Overloaded

It's like an overcast day now in FS2 but with a fixed static light bias based on the lighting direction in a still photograph. The local surface illumination and reflections do not vary with aircraft movement and the direction of the sun or brightest clouds, actually you can fly from a light to a dark surface with apparent constant lighting conditions on a constant heading, like an insect walking over a photograph.

I guess that's the sort of thing i'm thinking about when I talk of water in a sim. Water is mercurial in real life and a bit less so in sims but still an active participant in the experience. It partners the moods of the sky, sometimes blue, sometimes red/orange. It reflects the lights of a city (VERY well done in X-plane 10 at night) and can reflect a shore.

It provides a realistic surface for seaplanes to land, and provides wakes for boats and watercraft....

Its part of a depiction of a living, breathing world, and Aerofly needs as much of that as it can get, to help bring the sim alive!

drhotwing1 (IPACS) · October 3, 2017 at 2:48 PM Official Post

I personally would rather see real water imagery rather than just some default single colored water blob thrown over water areas. I always thought that it looked fake. Also having water imagery you can actually see the different variations of colors as well as other subtle variances within the water. My thoughts to a compromised solution would be to keep the water imagery but add an animated transparent layer on top of it. This way the water will stay realistic but have a wave motion and depth feel to it.

I normally just stay neutral when it comes to subjective threads like this one but fake water is actually one of my pet peeves.

Jetjockey10 · October 3, 2017 at 3:13 PM

Quote from drhotwing1

I personally would rather see real water imagery rather than just some default single colored water blob thrown over water areas. . . .

I normally just stay neutral when it comes to subjective threads like this one but fake water is actually one of my pet peeves.

Quote from HiFlyer

Water is mercurial in real life and a bit less so in sims but still an active participant in the experience. .

It provides a realistic surface for seaplanes to land, and provides wakes for boats and watercraft....

Its part of a depiction of a living, breathing world, and Aerofly needs as much of that as it can get, to help bring the sim alive!

There is a hellva lot more water on this earth than land and it is just flat out unnatural to use photos of all the lakes, rivers, oceans and other bodies of water in a flight sim.

Having a wet surface for seaplanes and ships should be near the top of any list of things to be added to Aerofly FS 2 IMHO.

If it is acceptable to have 3 relatively small areas, in relation to the total available space on the planet, for flying in the sim, then why not add a lake or river or two with water so we can get a taste of the wet stuff? They could call it the Water DLC.

Regards,

Ray

Jetjockey10 · October 3, 2017 at 3:24 PM

Jet-Pack (IPACS) · October 3, 2017 at 3:31 PM Official Post

Ray, that is not how my Aerofly looks like... Water is still blue and all, gets a very nice bright blue color near the coast where the water is shallower.

You should check out this video, if you haven't seen it.... (skip to 5:58 for example)

You can compare that to Aerofly. In the video the water is very none-reflective due to the light breeze (15kts) of wind creating small waves. Water has a very solid color there actually, is more gray-greenish and brown on final approach, our water is a bit too blue there (still looking good though)

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drhotwing1 (IPACS) · October 3, 2017 at 3:37 PM Official Post

Ray,

that is not an accurate rendition of water in Aerofly FS2. Having photo imagery water does not make it grey, it actually makes it more realistic, not the other way around.

Jetjockey10 · October 3, 2017 at 4:09 PM

Quote from drhotwing1

Ray,

that is not an accurate rendition of water in Aerofly FS2. Having photo imagery water does not make it grey, it actually makes it more realistic, not the other way around.

I guess that is a subjective opinion. There is no water in Aerofly FS2. If there is no water, then the imagery color is not a valid argument because there is no water.

Now, as far a how does the photoimagery of water appear is a totally different thing. I think the Lake Michigan photos of the water used by Orbx in the Meigs Field scenery is about as good as it gets - but I can't splash my seaplane into a photo.

Regards.

Ray

Jetjockey10 · October 3, 2017 at 4:13 PM

Jeff,

btw, how realistic does the water appear in your Key West scenery? That should be a good test of photo imagery with many different colors and shades of water.

Regards

Ray

drhotwing1 (IPACS) · October 3, 2017 at 4:25 PM Official Post

Quote from Jetjockey10

Jeff,

btw, how realistic does the water appear in your Key West scenery? That should be a good test of photo imagery with many different colors and shades of water.

Regards

Ray

Since I've flown GA in the Keys before I can make a clear comparison and the imagery that I used, along with the manual water masking and editing that I did, the water in my scenery looks almost exactly like real life.

There is no way that i would be able to get that realistic look as I have in my scenery if the water was just thrown in. It would look very out of place.

What point are you trying to get at here?

HiFlyer · October 3, 2017 at 4:38 PM

Didn't mean to start a controversy. The fact that every flight sim ever created in the last few decades depicts water had me thinking it was pretty much a given that it was a basic attribute, right up there with clouds.

Jetjockey10 · October 3, 2017 at 4:44 PM

Quote from drhotwing1

Since I've flown GA in the Keys before I can make a clear comparison and the imagery that I used, along with the manual water masking and editing that I did, the water in my scenery looks almost exactly like real life.

There is no way that i would be able to get that realistic look as I have in my scenery if the water was just thrown in. It would look very out of place.

What point are you trying to get at here?

Simple point. I am eager to see it and add Key West to the available flying areas. I also have extensive experience flying in the keys and I know the few add on scenery packages that I have purchased for FSX do an extremely poor job of balancing the water colors from the available aerial scenery in Key West.

I downloaded the FSET scenery for the area and the water tiles are very chopped up and poorly matched to adjacent tiles, meaning a lot of intensive work was needed to clean it up. I am flying there anyway, almost on a daily basis, while waiting for your upload.

Regards,

Ray

drhotwing1 (IPACS) · October 3, 2017 at 4:55 PM Official Post

Yes, I had to spend a lot of time manually cleaning the images up, then blended them using some alpha layering; and they still aren't perfect.

Jetjockey10 · October 3, 2017 at 4:56 PM

Almost an unlimited number of colors of water and land here. All very inviting though.

drhotwing1 (IPACS) · October 3, 2017 at 5:02 PM Official Post

I know it well. All true.

I'll be out there again at the end of this month for a few weeks on vacation

Jetjockey10 · October 3, 2017 at 5:07 PM

Quote from drhotwing1

I know it well. All true.

I'll be out there again at the end of this month for a few weeks on vacation

Excellent. Enjoy the vacation. Maybe the AF2 users can fly over your beach umbrella and wave at you.

Ray

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