zoot

We can assume that we'll eventually have a deformable water plane, like discussed by myconid here. In this case, it should be safe to say that we'll at least want whitewater at places where the water surface is very steep (i.e. in waterfalls) and in areas where water splashes from above:

The purpose of this thread is to discuss how visually accurate whitewater may be rendered. Whitewater is the frothy, turbulent water that is seen in waterfalls and rapids: I guess the main issue to address is where the whitewater should be rendered and secondly how it should be done.

Right, but maybe as a step after the alpha blending has been done? So you would specify an alpha map along with a matching normal map in the terrain XML.

How about normal maps for texture blends? A mountain path like this would look a lot better if the grass at the sides had more of an edge:

I have this problem too I'd have to throw out all my cookies to get the mobile theme back.

Can you be bribed to put this on your list? Edit: Oh, I guess you already did.

@AbdelMuhamar Probably the best aid would be illustrations of some kind, because I suspect the real art in modelling is combining all the elements into a cohesive whole. I can relate to your point that the Celts are depicted as kind of primitive, I just can't find any good sources on what exactly urban Celtic architecture looked like.

Ah well It did sound very nice, though.

Maybe it doesn't work this way, but I see two different "modes": cubemaps for drawing static objects and "something else" for drawing dynamic objects. My suggestion then would be to reduce the real-time workload of the "something else" part by continually keeping track of units in view of the reflector.

Cool! As an alternative, would it be infeasible to maintain a list of "stuff to draw" in non-real-time? So if a unit walked inside the "view" of the reflective surface, it would be added to the list. When it walks out the view, it would be removed. Then when the reflective surface comes into the view of the camera, the renderer would just draw everything on the list.

Also, if we combined culling with what myconid is suggesting (rendering cubemaps at large changes), the amount of geometry to render would be even smaller (it would be limited to things that move, like units).

Thanks. Is this the case even after culling? I mean, very little actual geometry would seem to have to be drawn on small reflective surfaces like those in myconid's screenshot.

Nice. I assume the only limitation is that other objects won't be reflected? For reflections, would it not be sufficient to render once per angle of the reflecting plane?

What are the concerns about efficiency of reflection/refraction? Is it different from other water rendering?

You should be able to do that yourself. Click 'Edit' on the OP, then 'Use full editor'.

I get this error: ERROR: Failed to compile shader 'shaders/glsl/model_common.fs': 0:194(27): error: Cannot access field `x' of non-structure / non-vector. 0:194(27): error: type mismatch ERROR: Failed to compile shader 'shaders/glsl/model_common.fs': 0:194(27): error: Cannot access field `x' of non-structure / non-vector. 0:194(27): error: type mismatch Also, there seems to be an issue with the fog being clipped at the edge of the map. This is from Atlas but it also shows in-game:

I think the whole approach to coloring has to be thought over. While it does look 'oversaturated' in bright areas (which there are many of currently), it just looks gorgeous in the dark areas:

Why not fountains? Just putting the basic ocean water animation in the bottom there might look a bit strange.

Well, it is purely hypothetical at this point, but if we have animated heightmaps, I assume we can do all sorts of optical effects on the fly, including normal mapping and caustics (per the paper linked above). That way we can have unique water animations for every pond, fountain, waterfall etc., complete with reflections, shadows, caustics and so on, with minimal work. We could also use it to create wakes, like suggested by myconid and quantumstate here, with full optical animations.

For what it's worth, I get no effects on the civic center either: (I'm on 'effectsdistance2' as suggested here.)

You may also want to lower the sun elevation a bit for optimal effect:

Can Blender simulate water like shown in the video above and export a heightmap of the water surface at each frame? Thinking less about oceans and more about ponds and pools.

AFAIK, grass is still mostly green in the autumn: Only around trees do you get the ground completely covered in those nice fall colors. (Maybe a decal can do it?) Instead, I would make the trees less green.

For caustics, I submit that they can potentially be done in real-time from a heightmap of the water surface. That would make it easier for modders to get consistent results. Here is a video based on the technique described in this paper:

How is the technically imposed ratio any less arbitrary than one that works visually?