Making water look sexy

[Maelstrom]

Just had an idea that could make the water in Spring look even sexier than it is now.

Change how reflective the water is, depending on what angle from the camera it is.

This, as far as I can tell is how water works in real life. So, water that is right underneath the camera will have almost no reflectivness. Water that is almost parrallel to the way your looking would be at about 90% reflectivity. This would look alot more realistic, and really cool.

I dont actually know how the current reflections are done, so it might not be possible to do this. But if it is, it would atleast be worth looking into.

Ill try to Google for some images to demonstrate what I mean.

[Maelstrom]

This is the best pic I could find to describe what I mean. Notice how the water is clear in the foreground, and really reflective in the background:

[IMSabbel]

er, DOH, what do you think the water shader already does?

Try looking top down, and its nearly transparent. (you can see subs/ect without problems)
Try getting the camera near the water and look at it in angle, and its nearly completely reflective.

[Maelstrom]

Sure it does? Didnt think it did it. Musnt have been looking hard enough...

Crap.

[SJ]

It does, although it uses another fresnel curve than true water.

[CrowJuice]

Why not make the ships make waves in the water?

[Min3mat]

ships have a wake, thats cool :)

[Storm]

Wouldn't five thousand interlacing wave calculations more or less implode any PCU not fit for massive global climate control?

[FireCrack]

It does, although it uses another fresnel curve than true water.

Why exactly, is this to make it easier to see subs?

[Dwarden]

storm not really depends what type of "wave" is meant ... if it's just short one behind the ship and optionable effect ... then it will be likely no problem ...

if you want it to depends on water waves at whole area and ship one affecting them etc etc... then it gets power hungry :)

[IMSabbel]

Come on. Either all or nothing.
We want nukes creating waves that roll onto the land and crush annihilators beneath them :D

[SwiftSpear]

Ship waves can be done with a static model that blends to alpha and has an animated texture. The water needs some sort of trigger to tell it that the model on top of it is a wave and it should be null underneith it rather then having the water layer clearly visable under the wave. The wave would also need some transparentcy to look good, expecially compared to the perfectly pure water we have in all spring maps right now. Water in spring has no cloudyness effect. makes it really hard to tell weather an underwater mex is acctually underwater or not.

[zwzsg]

Many versions ago I played Spring, and I built a couple ships. They had nice wakes. Lemme retry. No, it wasn't a dream, ships already do create wakes in Spring.

[SwiftSpear]

Many versions ago I played Spring, and I built a couple ships. They had nice wakes. Lemme retry. No, it wasn't a dream, ships already do create wakes in Spring.

They add little cloudy sprites into the water IIRC... It's hardly what you would call a real wake.

[Kixxe]

Paintece young ones...


First we remove all bugs, then we add awesome GUI, then maybe some cool music feutre, THEN cool weather effects and wawes.

And then we lived happly everyday after!

[Min3mat]

i like the wakes
agreed kixxe

[FizWizz]

I like the current wake effects too. 3D waves are just... not very important

[AF]

Some waves or change in the waters surface would be nice but the wakes are pretty.

In future if it is implemented however I think its more important to do them for explosions than wakes.