Transparent Water

[Captain_Colossus]

Still escaping me how this is accomplished in the map editor- the map theme assigns the water texture and the underlying texture for the river/ocean bed; aside from that, where is the option to make the water transparent?

[Ssnake]

There is none. We render the water semi-transparent in the mission editor so that you can identify suitable crossing sites without a gazillion test runs. But in reality rivers rarely are clear enough to let you see to the ground, so for the sake of simplicity and realism we decided to have an intransparent surface.

Of course it'd be visually more attractive to have multiple texture layers (dynamic environmental bump mapping at the top for wave/mirror effects, then two or three layers to make the water gradually fade into darkness or some muddy brown color). But visual attraction is low in ourpriority list if it doesn't affect concealment of units in the terrain, so I don't think that we're going to invest a lot before SB2 here.

[Grenny]

Hmm, It becomes transparent...you can see it just one moment befor your engine(and allmost everything else) on your tank dies.

BTW: Ssnake, how about "Tiefwatsatz" for the tanks :-P

[Captain_Colossus]

But in reality rivers rarely are clear enough to let you see to the ground, so for the sake of simplicity and realism we decided to have an intransparent surface.




While that is true, the stark aquamarine texture is also an artificial compromise- it stick out like a sore thumb, if that is the effect you are trying to diminish; the first time I saw a stream in SB Pro PE, I thought it was a boundary line rendered in for training purposes- I drove over it without a care as to whether it was a water obstacle or not, since I did not identify it as such. In that respect, the river texture looks more abstract and out of place alongside the high res textures of SB Pro than in SB Legacy.

While I understand where you're coming from, the map theme editor would seem to provide the tools to accomodate us both- the user can assign dirt or mud texture for the Hi and Lo tiles, and therefore give the water a dark appearance. I'm not asking that the water reflect the sky or anything- given SB's modifiable graphics it would probably would be unworkable. Still, looking at the shots of the Grand Canyon in the SB picture gallery makes me envious-the river bed looks very well done- and in fact superior to the opaque water texture (I suspect you know this too), and yet I know I can't have that in play.

[dejawolf]

its not just mudcontent. its the natural athmospheric thingy of water.
well, impure water anyways. some waters are so crystal clear you can see right through them, although those rivers are rare that have so clear water.
what most nextgen games does nowadays is simply to add a moving normal map, and a add some mirror effect with a bit of anisotropy. multiple layers.. well each layer is going to kill the framerate 10x. transparency behind transparency is not recommended, especially with advanced shaders playing in.

[Captain_Colossus]

I don't think affectations of water graphics of the sort you get in the modern ego shooters are necessary here; This shot here seems to be a good enough representation while not trading off too much for expensive hardware cycles. It looks like water, you can appreciate some depth too it rather than witnessing what looks like flat, blue tape strewn across the ground (the streams are particularly given to this notion- I still get fooled by them, and I treat them all as if they were deep water capable of swamping vehicles):

http://www.steelbeasts.com/index.php?categoryid=13&g2_itemId=241


It's odd though- notice that the water is clear in the foreground and gradually becomes darker and opaque the further out it is rendered. I don't remember the water doing that even in the mission editor; it's as if some profound changes have been made since then.

[Skybird03]

BTW: Ssnake, how about "Tiefwatsatz" for the tanks :-P

Isn't it wonderful what the military, police and bureaucracy sometime can do to this German language...

[dejawolf]

thats because that is no water.. thats a texture. a texture with blue colour and no depth, the way it was done in Sb1 *shudder*

[Ssnake]

Like Raino said, the shot was made at a time of transition. What you see is mere alpha-blending between a water and a ground texture (what we still use between different ground textures; was more obvious before we added the mottling at texture boundaries).
This proves that in a static screenshot you can conceal things well, and that even simple tricks can fool the eye to some extent. Unfortunately we can't even use the alpha transparency in out water texture near the embankment because in reality the water surface is all over the entire map (or actually, mostly all under the entire map, occasionally intersecting with river areas.