Water discussion and bumpwater smd tags

[Beherith]

Since we got bumpwater, I havent seen a comprehensive, mappers guide to using it, so I thought we should pool our efforts to make the best of this great new feature.

I asked jK about what new smd tags, he said it doesnt use the old water smd tags because the colors were all wrong. He linked me the svn commit of bumpwater, which only lists the tags, but doesnt provide an adequate description:
http://spring.clan-sy.com/websvn/listin ... =6124&sc=1

*and the map options (new/changed marked with a *):
surfaceColor = (0.75f, 0.8f, 0.85f)
surfaceAlpha = 0.55f
*diffuseColor = (1.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f)
specularColor = groundSunColor
*specularPower = 20.0f (RENAMED!!! this was specularFactor before)
*specularFactor = 1.0f
*ambientFactor = 1.0f
*diffuseFactor = 1.0f
fresnelMin = 0.2f (0.0<x<=1.0)
fresnelMax = 0.7f (<1.0-fresnelMin)
fresnelPower = 4.0f
*reflectionDistortion = 1.0f
*blurBase = 2.0f
*blurExponent = 1.5f
*perlinStartFreq = 8.0f (those perlin.. influence the wave sizes)
*perlinLacunarity = 3.0f
*perlinAmplitude = 0.9f (0.0<x<=1.0)

Now, the smd syntax of these is, for example:
surfaceColor = (0.75f, 0.8f, 0.85f) -->
[WATER]
{
WaterSurfaceColor = 0.75 0.8 0.85;
}

My real issue is, that I have more or less no clue what these tags actually do. Ill be looking through them and tweaking them to find out, any help in this would be greatly appreciated.

Edit:

Added these tags to the smd wiki page, feel free to correct and update them:

http://spring.clan-sy.com/wiki/Maps:SMD

[thesleepless]

would be nice to see some screens of the different settings in comparison,

only basic, reflective, reflective+refractive work for me

[Beherith]

So, after a few hours of tweaking, i managed to decipher most of the new water tags. A complete description can be found on the wiki. I also updated the old water tag descriptions.

http://spring.clan-sy.com/wiki/Maps:SMD

[Quanto042]

Ah thanks for the Intel, I've been wondering what I could to to get my bump water to look less generic. Seems to be a lot of info still missing, but it seems to me that most of the settings are pretty useless anyways.

[Beherith]

Yeah, most of the tags labeled -no clue- dont really seem to do anything signficant, so you might as well keep them at default.
If this excersize was good for anything, then its that I figured out how waterabsorb actually works :)

[Warlord Zsinj]

Figuring out all these water tags aren't going to help you that much with desert world maps

[Hoi]

Talking isn't going to help you finish IW and release it

[Beherith]

Found some VERY interesting, and insanely powerful features in the bumpwater renderer:

You can replace the textures it uses, by adding these smd tags:

WaterNormalTexture= (looks for bitmap in /maps) ;
WaterTexture= ;
WaterFoamTexture= ;

Makes all kinds of stuff possible.

EDIT: Premature joy
Waternormaltexture seems to work, but watertexture doesnt

[Otherside]

JK could fix it :p

[CarRepairer]

Am I the only one who voted "other" in protest over the fact that this option can't exist?

[azaremoth]

Am I the only one who voted "other" in protest over the fact that this option can't exist?

Well - "other" could be: "I am using all of them", by activating the FPS-manager for example. At least this was my thought...

[jK]

i thought more of a self lua written one ^^
(BumpWater was a widget in its beta-stage)

[CarRepairer]

Ah.. I've used FPS manager but after a few times it was so painful. I found the constant switching back and forth to be more of a drag on my system and it was just easier to set the settings to a low enough level. This was back when I was on a slow laptop however. Now I play at medium settings.

[Beherith]

jK, you gave me that widget a while back, I fixed the bugs in it that caused it to crash, but that involved disabling the first 6 options, may I release it?