Are we going to have 3D water eventually?

  • I believe Aerofly FS2 is on the way to a bright future, but there is something that can limit it from achieving true greatness. The lack of 3D water is among the major obstacles.

    I have no doubt flight simulation is progressing towards more and more realistic modelling of our planet earth, something like Google Earth VR, but more detailed, and more alive. Then we can't imagine the lack of 3D water in this virtual world. The static satellite image might be enough for today, but will be a bottleneck of the future.

    Edited once, last by frui (December 3, 2017 at 10:13 AM).

  • It used to be very time consuming to draw all the coastline and to outline all the small water bodies, but now with abundant GIS data, and such ready program as OpenStreetMap, it's much easier to automate the job. If you have to do this eventually, I'd suggest doing it now.

  • It used to be very time consuming to draw all the coastline and to outline all the small water bodies, but now with abundant GIS data, and such ready program as OpenStreetMap, it's much easier to automate the job. If you have to do this eventually, I'd suggest doing it now.

    I remember my friends over at Outerra struggled with this for years, as their techniques tended to flood certain areas unacceptably and since their water had actual depth (bathymetry) things were even harder, especially with lakes and rivers. It seems that water can sometimes be more complicated an issue than it first appears......

    Yet I admit I miss it badly because it's so common everywhere else and people have come to expect it as pretty much a basic given in any sort of modern sim. Right up there with working dynamic landing lights, at least for planes. (My second gimme gimme)

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    Edited once, last by HiFlyer (December 5, 2017 at 4:16 PM).

  • 3D water (controllable waves) is great - both Combat Air Patrol 2 and War Thunder have them and I don't think that it slows performance that much because the GPU does most of the wave calculations. But then if you want a seaplane to operate on the waves, that is more difficult to calculate all the contact point movements.

    2D water (no real waves but apparent waves when viewing from altitude using smart textures) is even less taxing on the CPU/GPU and at least provides "life" to the water - but the real issue is having a database of all coastlines with sufficient detail to refrain from water creeping up on the earthen banks. This requires also that the photoreal images be processed with that coastline data (oceans, lakes, rivers,...) so as to create a water mask. OSM and other sources can provide that data but still it must be programmed into the graphics of FS2.

    Dave W.

  • I agree, especially the flat boats and static wake detract from the experience for me. Also weird when different areas of water look so different compared to each other. Water in Switzerland looks cartoony. I'd be happy with just an animated texture, without the static and flat boats.

  • For World2Xp, it's just a matter of defining an area, and all the water bodies are outlined correctly with just one click.

    3D water (controllable waves) is great - both Combat Air Patrol 2 and War Thunder have them and I don't think that it slows performance that much because the GPU does most of the wave calculations. But then if you want a seaplane to operate on the waves, that is more difficult to calculate all the contact point movements.

    2D water (no real waves but apparent waves when viewing from altitude using smart textures) is even less taxing on the CPU/GPU and at least provides "life" to the water - but the real issue is having a database of all coastlines with sufficient detail to refrain from water creeping up on the earthen banks. This requires also that the photoreal images be processed with that coastline data (oceans, lakes, rivers,...) so as to create a water mask. OSM and other sources can provide that data but still it must be programmed into the graphics of FS2.

    Dave W.