This Could Be Very Interesting - AnKor's Shaders

[MajorMagee]

http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3881675/DirectX_8_to_9_converter_updat#Post3881675

This could eventually allow SweetFX to run in CFS3 as well...

[hairyspin]

This has some very interesting implications, but I'm away from my Win7 machine for the hols...

[gecko]

Very interesting indeed. I've got the DX8 version of ENB working just fine, but hadn't been able to get the DX9 version or sweetfx working. I don't know much about them, what capabilities do they have over DX8 ENB?

[MajorMagee]

http://www.guru3d.com/files_details/sweetfx_shader_suite_download.html

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=368880

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=373299

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=376265

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=381965

http://www.enbdev.com/

[MajorMagee]

Videos showing the effects.
http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3882826/WOFF_SweetFX_videos#Post3882826 (http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3882826/WOFF_SweetFX_videos#Post3882826)

[MajorMagee]

Here are some Sweet FX Configurator tools.

http://sweetfx.thelazy.net/ (http://sweetfx.thelazy.net/)

http://riseofflight.com/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=34103

[MajorMagee]

So far, it's not working for me, but I think it's the 3840 x 1024 resolution that causing the problem. Anyone else try it out successfully yet?

http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3881675/1

[gecko]

I tried, no luck yet, haven't had time to mess with it much though.

[MajorMagee]

I have it working now. The trick was to rerun CFS3config and to assign the screen resolution again.

He's also posted a newer version of the dlls on page one of his thread, so you might want to download it again.

[MajorMagee]

If you choose to install FlightFX to manage your SweetFX settings you should also install the latest version of SweetFX (1.5.1 http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=381912) in the FlightFX/FX folder before you register CFS3 as a new game. If you don't FlightFX will install it's own older version of SweetFX into your game.

[MajorMagee]

These are just preliminary settings in SweetFX but here are some screenshots.

1963
Original - SweetFX
1964
Original - SweetFX

[NachtPiloten]

Could you write up a step by step install?:dizzy:

[MajorMagee]

Here are the settings I was using for the screenshots.


#define USE_SMAA_ANTIALIASING 1
#define SMAA_THRESHOLD 0.12
#define SMAA_MAX_SEARCH_STEPS 16
#define SMAA_MAX_SEARCH_STEPS_DIAG 6
#define SMAA_CORNER_ROUNDING 0
#define COLOR_EDGE_DETECTION 1
#define SMAA_DIRECTX9_LINEAR_BLEND 0
#define USE_LUMASHARPEN 1
#define sharp_strength 0.60
#define sharp_clamp 0.04
#define pattern 2
#define offset_bias 1.00
#define show_sharpen 0
#define USE_BLOOM 1
#define BloomThreshold 22.20
#define BloomPower 1.98
#define BloomWidth 0.12
#define USE_HDR 1
#define HDRPower 1.41
#define radius2 0.78
#define USE_TECHNICOLOR 0
#define TechniAmount 0.11
#define TechniPower 2.80
#define redNegativeAmount 0.88
#define greenNegativeAmount 0.88
#define blueNegativeAmount 0.88
#define USE_DPX 0
#define Red 8.00
#define Green 7.90
#define Blue 8.20
#define ColorGamma 2.50
#define DPXSaturation 3.00
#define RedC 0.36
#define GreenC 0.35
#define BlueC 0.34
#define Blend 0.10
#define USE_LIFTGAMMAGAIN 1
#define RGB_Lift float3(1.00,1.00,1.00)
#define RGB_Gamma float3(1.04,1.00,1.04)
#define RGB_Gain float3(1.00,1.00,1.00)
#define USE_TONEMAP 1
#define Gamma 0.84
#define Exposure 0.00
#define Saturation -0.54
#define Bleach 0.00
#define Defog 0.00
#define FogColor float3(0.00,0.00,1.00)
#define USE_VIBRANCE 1
#define Vibrance 0.50
#define USE_CURVES 0
#define Curves_contrast 0.15
#define Curves_formula 2
#define USE_SEPIA 0
#define ColorTone float3(1.00,1.00,0.90)
#define GreyPower 0.11
#define SepiaPower 0.58
#define USE_VIGNETTE 0
#define VignetteRadius 1.00
#define VignetteAmount -1.00
#define VignetteSlope 8
#define VignetteCenter float2(0.50,0.50)
#define USE_DITHER 0
#define USE_SPLITSCREEN 0
#define splitscreen_mode 3

[MajorMagee]

Here's how I did my SweetFX install:

1. Download the latest converter files from here http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3881675/DirectX_8_to_9_converter_updat#Post3881675 and install the d3d8.dll and d3d8.ini files where your cfs3.exe file is. This can be done for each install of CFS3 you may have.

2. Edit the ini file to NoMultisampling=1 (you do not need this if you're going to be using the DX9 ENB injector found here http://www.enbdev.com/download.htm)

3. Run CFS3Config.exe and make sure you choose the proper display options selection again (it will probably show 800 x 600 x 32).

4. Download FlightFX from here http://riseofflight.com/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=34103 and install it on your computer.

5. Since version 1.0 of Flight FX does not have latest version (1.5.1) of Sweet FX included you need to download that from here http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=381912 and extract all of it to the FX folder where you have Flight FX installed. Let it overwrite any of the files that may have the same names as what FlightFX already had.

6. Now you can run Flight FX and click on Register New Game at the bottom left. It will open a dialog box where you'll navigate it to your cfs3.exe file. That will populate the paths at the top right of Flight FX for you.

7. Click on Enable Sweet FX and it will copy most of the needed files into your CFS3 install. It misses SweetFX_compatibility_settings.txt which is in the Flight FX / FX / SweetFX folder and needs to be manually copied into the matching one Flight FX created in your CFS3 directory.

8. Select the FX Preset you want to use from the pull down list. The files behind this list are located in the Flight FX / FX / SweetFX / Presets folder. They are just text files so you can create new presets manually by cut and past if you like. Make a back-up copy of any of your favorites because it is all too easy to overwrite them by mistake in Flight FX.

That is really all there is to it. At this point you can edit any of the settings under the FX Settings tab and the effect will be immediate.

By default the Scroll Lock key will toggle the shader effects on and off.
The Print Screen Key will place a screenshot in your CFS3 root directory (This overrules CFS3 that normally wants to save screenshots in the CFS3 folder under My Documents).
If you uncheck the Enable SweetFX box in Flight FX it will uninstall SweetFX (but not the D3D8 and SweetFX_compatibility_settings files you did manually) and you're back to normal.

[hairyspin]

Thanks Major, I'm looking forward to investigating this next week.

[NachtPiloten]

Here's how I did my SweetFX install:

1. Download the latest converter files from here http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3881675/DirectX_8_to_9_converter_updat#Post3881675 and install the d3d8.dll and d3d8.ini files where your cfs3.exe file is. This can be done for each install of CFS3 you may have.

2. Edit the ini file to NoMultisampling=1 (you do not need this if you're going to be using the DX9 ENB injector found here http://www.enbdev.com/download.htm)

3. Run CFS3Config.exe and make sure you choose the proper display options selection again (it will probably show 800 x 600 x 32).

4. Download FlightFX from here http://riseofflight.com/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=34103 and install it on your computer.

5. Since version 1.0 of Flight FX does not have latest version (1.5.1) of Sweet FX included you need to download that from here http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=381912 and extract all of it to the FX folder where you have Flight FX installed. Let it overwrite any of the files that may have the same names as what FlightFX already had.

6. Now you can run Flight FX and click on Register New Game at the bottom left. It will open a dialog box where you'll navigate it to your cfs3.exe file. That will populate the paths at the top right of Flight FX for you.

7. Click on Enable Sweet FX and it will copy most of the needed files into your CFS3 install. It misses SweetFX_compatibility_settings.txt which is in the Flight FX / FX / SweetFX folder and needs to be manually copied into the matching one Flight FX created in your CFS3 directory.

8. Select the FX Preset you want to use from the pull down list. The files behind this list are located in the Flight FX / FX / SweetFX / Presets folder. They are just text files so you can create new presets manually by cut and past if you like. Make a back-up copy of any of your favorites because it is all too easy to overwrite them by mistake in Flight FX.

That is really all there is to it. At this point you can edit any of the settings under the FX Settings tab and the effect will be immediate.

By default the Scroll Lock key will toggle the shader effects on and off.
The Print Screen Key will place a screenshot in your CFS3 root directory (This overrules CFS3 that normally wants to save screenshots in the CFS3 folder under My Documents).
If you uncheck the Enable SweetFX box in Flight FX it will uninstall SweetFX (but not the D3D8 and SweetFX_compatibility_settings files you did manually) and you're back to normal.

Thanks!!! for this

[MajorMagee]

http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforums/attachment.php?attachmentid=2003&stc=1

Here are some more interesting settings for a much brighter and clearer image.


/*-----------------------------------------------------------.
/ Choose effects /
'-----------------------------------------------------------*/


// Set to 1 for ON or 0 for OFF
#define USE_SMAA_ANTIALIASING 0 //[0 or 1] SMAA Anti-aliasing : Smoothens jagged lines.
#define USE_LUMASHARPEN 1 //[0 or 1] LumaSharpen : Also sharpens the antialiased edges which makes them less smooth - I'm working on fixing that.
#define USE_BLOOM 1 //[0 or 1] Bloom : Makes bright lights bleed their light into their surroundings (relatively high performance cost)
#define USE_HDR 1 //[0 or 1] HDR : Not actual HDR - It just tries to mimic an HDR look (relatively high performance cost)
#define USE_TECHNICOLOR 0 //[0 or 1] TECHNICOLOR : Attempts to mimic the look of an old movie using the Technicolor three-strip color process (Techicolor Process 4)
#define USE_DPX 1 //[0 or 1] Cineon DPX : Should make the image look like it's been converted to DXP Cineon - basically it's another movie-like look similar to technicolor.
#define USE_LIFTGAMMAGAIN 1 //[0 or 1] Lift Gamma Gain : Adjust brightness and color of shadows, midtones and highlights (avoids clipping)
#define USE_TONEMAP 0 //[0 or 1] Tonemap : Adjust gamma, exposure, saturation, bleach and defog. (may cause clipping)
#define USE_VIBRANCE 0 //[0 or 1] Vibrance : Intelligently saturates (or desaturates if you use negative values) the pixels depending on their original saturation.
#define USE_CURVES 0 //[0 or 1] Curves : Contrast adjustments using S-curves.
#define USE_SEPIA 0 //[0 or 1] Sepia : Sepia tones the image.
#define USE_VIGNETTE 0 //[0 or 1] Vignette : Darkens the edges of the image to make it look more like it was shot with a camera lens. May cause banding artifacts.
#define USE_DITHER 0 //[0 or 1] Dither : Applies dithering to simulate more colors than your monitor can display. This lessens banding artifacts (mostly caused by Vignette)
#define USE_SPLITSCREEN 0 //[0 or 1] Splitscreen : Enables the before-and-after splitscreen comparison mode.




/*-----------------------------------------------------------.
/ SMAA Anti-aliasing settings /
'-----------------------------------------------------------*/


#define SMAA_THRESHOLD 0.20 // [0.05 to 0.20] Edge detection threshold
#define SMAA_MAX_SEARCH_STEPS 98 // [0 to 98] Determines the radius SMAA will search for aliased edges
#define SMAA_MAX_SEARCH_STEPS_DIAG 16 // [0 to 16] Determines the radius SMAA will search for diagonal aliased edges
#define SMAA_CORNER_ROUNDING 100 // [0 to 100] Determines the percent of antialiasing to apply to corners.


// -- Advanced SMAA settings --
#define COLOR_EDGE_DETECTION 1 // [0 or 1] 1 Enables color edge detection (slower but slightly more acurate) - 0 uses luma edge detection (faster)
#define SMAA_DIRECTX9_LINEAR_BLEND 0 // [0 or 1] Using DX9 HARDWARE? (software version doesn't matter) if so this needs to be 1 - If not, leave it at 0.




/*-----------------------------------------------------------.
/ LumaSharpen settings /
'-----------------------------------------------------------*/
// -- Sharpening --
#define sharp_strength 1.00 // [0.10 to 3.00] Strength of the sharpening
#define sharp_clamp 0.035 // [0.000 to 1.000] Limits maximum amount of sharpening a pixel recieves - Default is 0.035


// -- Advanced sharpening settings --
#define pattern 4 // [1|2|3|4] Choose a sample pattern. 1 = Fast, 2 = Normal, 3 = Wider, 4 = Pyramid shaped.
#define offset_bias 1.0 // [0.0 to 6.0] Offset bias adjusts the radius of the sampling pattern.
// I designed the pattern for offset_bias 1.0, but feel free to experiment.

// -- Debug sharpening settings --
#define show_sharpen 0 // [0 or 1] Visualize the strength of the sharpen (multiplied by 4 to see it better)




/*-----------------------------------------------------------.
/ Bloom settings /
'-----------------------------------------------------------*/
#define BloomThreshold 23.25 //[0.00 to 50.00] Threshold for what is a bright light (that causes bloom) and what isn't.
#define BloomPower 2.0 //[0.0000 to 8.0000] Strength of the bloom
#define BloomWidth 0.0142 //[0.0000 to 1.0000] Width of the bloom




/*-----------------------------------------------------------.
/ HDR settings /
'-----------------------------------------------------------*/
#define HDRPower 0.77 //[0.0 to 8.0] Strangely lowering this makes the image brighter
#define radius2 0.80 //[0.0 to 8.0] Raising this seems to make the effect stronger and also brighter




/*-----------------------------------------------------------.
/ TECHNICOLOR settings /
'-----------------------------------------------------------*/
#define TechniAmount 0.10 //[0.0 to 1.0]
#define TechniPower 8.0 //[0.0 to 8.0]
#define redNegativeAmount 0.50 //[0.0 to 1.0]
#define greenNegativeAmount 0.80 //[0.0 to 1.0]
#define blueNegativeAmount 0.50 //[0.0 to 1.0]




/*-----------------------------------------------------------.
/ Cineon DPX settings /
'-----------------------------------------------------------*/
#define Red 8.0 //[1.0 to 15.0]
#define Green 8.0 //[1.0 to 15.0]
#define Blue 8.0 //[1.0 to 15.0]


#define ColorGamma 2.5 //[0.1 to 2.5] Adjusts the colorfulness of the effect in a manner similar to Vibrance. 1.0 is neutral.
#define DPXSaturation 3.0 //[0.0 to 8.0] Adjust saturation of the effect. 1.0 is neutral.


#define RedC 0.36 //[0.6 to 0.2]
#define GreenC 0.36 //[0.6 to 0.2]
#define BlueC 0.34 //[0.6 to 0.2]


#define Blend 0.2 //[0.0 to 0.1] How strong the effect should be.




/*-----------------------------------------------------------.
/ Lift Gamma Gain settings /
'-----------------------------------------------------------*/
#define RGB_Lift float3(0.400000, 0.400000, 0.400000) //[0.000 to 2.000] Adjust shadows for Red, Green and Blue
#define RGB_Gamma float3(1.200, 1.200, 1.200) //[0.000 to 2.000] Adjust midtones for Red, Green and Blue
#define RGB_Gain float3(0.950, 0.950, 0.950) //[0.000 to 2.000] Adjust highlights for Red, Green and Blue




/*-----------------------------------------------------------.
/ Tonemap settings /
'-----------------------------------------------------------*/
#define Gamma 1.15 //[0.00 to 2.00] Adjust midtones


#define Exposure 0.01 //[-1.00 to 1.00] Adjust exposure


#define Saturation 0.0000 //[-1.00 to 1.00] Adjust saturation


#define Bleach 0.00 //[0.00 to 1.00] Brightens the shadows and fades the colors


#define Defog 0.055 //[0.00 to 1.00] How much of the color tint to remove
#define FogColor float3(0.30, 0.30, 0.40) //[0.00 to 1.00, 0.00 to 1.00, 0.00 to 1.00] What color to remove - default is blue




/*-----------------------------------------------------------.
/ Vibrance settings /
'-----------------------------------------------------------*/
#define Vibrance 0.1 //[-1.0 to 1.0] Intelligently saturates (or desaturates if you use negative values) the pixels depending on their original saturation.




/*-----------------------------------------------------------.
/ Curves settings /
'-----------------------------------------------------------*/
#define Curves_contrast 1.0 //[-1.0 to 1.0] The amount of contrast you want


// -- Advanced curve settings --
#define Curves_formula 7 //[1|2|3|4|5|6|7] The constrast s-curve you want to use.




/*-----------------------------------------------------------.
/ Sepia settings /
'-----------------------------------------------------------*/
#define ColorTone float3(1.40, 1.10, 0.90) //[0.00 to 1.00, 0.00 to 1.00, 0.00 to 1.00] What color to tint the image
#define GreyPower 0.11 //[0.0 to 1.0] How much desaturate the image before tinting it
#define SepiaPower 0.58 //[0.0 to 1.0] How much to tint the image






/*-----------------------------------------------------------.
/ Vignette settings /
'-----------------------------------------------------------*/
#define VignetteRadius 1.00 //[-1.00 to 3.00] lower values = stronger radial effect from center
#define VignetteAmount -1.00 //[-2.00 to 1.00] Strength of black. -2.00 = Max Black, 1.00 = Max White.
#define VignetteSlope 6 //[1 to 16] How far away from the center the change should start to really grow strong (odd numbers cause a larger fps drop than even numbers)
#define VignetteCenter float2(0.500, 0.500) //[0.00 to 1.00] Center of effect.




/*-----------------------------------------------------------.
/ Dither settings /
'-----------------------------------------------------------*/
//No settings yet, beyond switching it on or off in the top section.


//Note that the checkerboard pattern used by Dither, makes an image harder to compress.
//This can make your screenshots and video recordings take up more space.




/*-----------------------------------------------------------.
/ Splitscreen settings /
'-----------------------------------------------------------*/
#define splitscreen_mode 1 //[1|2|3|4|5] 1 = Vertical 50/50 split, 2 = Vertical 25/50/25 split, 3 = Vertical 50/50 angled split, 4 = Horizontal 50/50 split, 5 = Horizontal 25/50/25 split

[MajorMagee]

http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforums/attachment.php?attachmentid=2047&stc=1
Original - SweetFX

Another few tweeks to make the HDR a bit lighter, and add some Vibrance to the colors. This looks great for sunny summer days, but not so good under dark gloomy skies.


/*-----------------------------------------------------------.
/ Description /
'------------------------------------------------------------/


Game:
Author:
SweetFX version: 1.5
Description:


Please note when tweaking settings that higher numbers does not always equal better (nor does lower).
Finding the best settings for your game and your taste is about finding just the right amount to apply.


If you made a good setttings preset please share it with your friends, on forums and websites,
and/or submit it to the SweetFX Settings Database : http://sfx.thelazy.net/games/


This description field and the above Game and Author fields are here so you can fill in your own details for the presets you create.
Just delete this description and fill in your own and then share it with the world.


Hope you enjoy my mod.
- CeeJay.dk


/*-----------------------------------------------------------.
/ Choose effects /
'-----------------------------------------------------------*/


// Set to 1 for ON or 0 for OFF
#define USE_SMAA_ANTIALIASING 0 //[0 or 1] SMAA Anti-aliasing : Smoothens jagged lines using the SMAA technique.
#define USE_FXAA_ANTIALIASING 0 //[0 or 1] FXAA Anti-aliasing : Smoothens jagged lines using the FXAA technique. WIP - Currently only works in DX9 and you need to use the FXAA injector dlls.
#define USE_EXPLOSION 0 //[0 or 1] Explosion : Scatters the pixels, making the image look fuzzy.
#define USE_CARTOON 0 //[0 or 1] Cartoon : "Toon"s the image. (Interferes with SMAA, CRT, Bloom, HDR and Lumasharpen)
#define USE_ADVANCED_CRT 0 //[0 or 1] Advanced CRT : Simulates an old CRT TV display. (Interferes with SMAA, Cartoon, Bloom, HDR and Lumasharpen, and it has a very high performance cost)
#define USE_BLOOM 1 //[0 or 1] Bloom : Makes bright lights bleed their light into their surroundings (relatively high performance cost)
#define USE_HDR 1 //[0 or 1] HDR : Not actual HDR - It just tries to mimic an HDR look (relatively high performance cost)
#define USE_LUMASHARPEN 1 //[0 or 1] LumaSharpen : Also sharpens the antialiased edges which makes them less smooth - I'm working on fixing that.
#define USE_LEVELS 0 //[0 or 1] Levels : Sets a new black and white point. This increases contrast but causes clipping. Use Curves instead if you want to avoid that.
#define USE_TECHNICOLOR 0 //[0 or 1] TECHNICOLOR : Attempts to mimic the look of an old movie using the Technicolor three-strip color process (Techicolor Process 4)
#define USE_DPX 1 //[0 or 1] Cineon DPX : Should make the image look like it's been converted to DXP Cineon - basically it's another movie-like look similar to technicolor.
#define USE_MONOCHROME 0 //[0 or 1] Monochrome : Monochrome makes the colors disappear.
#define USE_LIFTGAMMAGAIN 1 //[0 or 1] Lift Gamma Gain : Adjust brightness and color of shadows, midtones and highlights
#define USE_TONEMAP 0 //[0 or 1] Tonemap : Adjust gamma, exposure, saturation, bleach and defog. (may cause clipping)
#define USE_VIBRANCE 1 //[0 or 1] Vibrance : Intelligently saturates (or desaturates if you use negative values) the pixels depending on their original saturation.
#define USE_CURVES 0 //[0 or 1] Curves : Contrast adjustments using S-curves.
#define USE_SEPIA 0 //[0 or 1] Sepia : Sepia tones the image.
#define USE_VIGNETTE 0 //[0 or 1] Vignette : Darkens the edges of the image to make it look more like it was shot with a camera lens. May cause banding artifacts.
#define USE_DITHER 0 //[0 or 1] Dither : Applies dithering to simulate more colors than your monitor can display. This lessens banding artifacts (mostly caused by Vignette)
#define USE_BORDER 0 //[0 or 1] Border : Makes the screenedge black as a workaround for the bright edge that forcing some AA modes sometimes causes.
#define USE_SPLITSCREEN 0 //[0 or 1] Splitscreen : Enables the before-and-after splitscreen comparison mode.


#define USE_CUSTOM 0 //[0 or 1] Custom : Write your own shader by editing custom.h, and then enable it here.


/*-----------------------------------------------------------.
/ SMAA Anti-aliasing settings /
'-----------------------------------------------------------*/


#define SMAA_THRESHOLD 0.10 //[0.05 to 0.20] Edge detection threshold. If SMAA misses some edges try lowering this slightly. I prefer between 0.08 and 0.12.
#define SMAA_MAX_SEARCH_STEPS 16 //[0 to 98] Determines the radius SMAA will search for aliased edges
#define SMAA_MAX_SEARCH_STEPS_DIAG 6 //[0 to 16] Determines the radius SMAA will search for diagonal aliased edges
#define SMAA_CORNER_ROUNDING 0 //[0 to 100] Determines the percent of antialiasing to apply to corners. 0 seems to affect fine text the least so it's the default.


// -- Advanced SMAA settings --
#define COLOR_EDGE_DETECTION 1 //[0 or 1] 1 Enables color edge detection (slower but slightly more acurate) - 0 uses luma edge detection (faster)
#define SMAA_DIRECTX9_LINEAR_BLEND 0 //[0 or 1] Using DX9 HARDWARE? (software version doesn't matter) if so this needs to be 1 - If not, leave it at 0.
//Enable this only if you use a Geforce 7xxx series or older card, or a Radeon X1xxx series or older card.


/*-----------------------------------------------------------.
/ FXAA Anti-aliasing settings /
'-----------------------------------------------------------*/
#define FXAA_QUALITY__PRESET 9 //[1 to 9] Choose the quality preset. 9 is the highest quality.
#define fxaa_Subpix 0.400 //[0.000 to 1.000] Choose the amount of sub-pixel aliasing removal.
#define fxaa_EdgeThreshold 0.250 //[0.000 to 1.000] Edge detection threshold. The minimum amount of local contrast required to apply algorithm.
#define fxaa_EdgeThresholdMin 0.060 //[0.000 to 1.000] Darkness threshold. Trims the algorithm from processing darks.


/*-----------------------------------------------------------.
/ Explosion settings /
'-----------------------------------------------------------*/
#define Explosion_Radius 2.5 //[0.2 to 100.0] Amount of effect you want.




/*-----------------------------------------------------------.
/ Cartoon settings /
'-----------------------------------------------------------*/
#define CartoonPower 1.5 //[0.1 to 10.0] Amount of effect you want.
#define CartoonEdgeSlope 1.5 //[0.1 to 8.0] Raise this to filter out fainter edges. You might need to increase the power to compensate. Whole numbers are faster.




/*----------------------------------------------------------.
/ Advanced CRT settings /
'----------------------------------------------------------*/
#define CRTAmount 1.00 //[0.00 to 1.00] Amount of CRT effect you want


#define CRTResolution 2.0 //[1.0 to 8.0] Input size coefficent (low values gives the "low-res retro look"). Default is 1.2
#define CRTgamma 2.2 //[0.0 to 4.0] Gamma of simulated CRT (default 2.2)
#define CRTmonitorgamma 2.4 //[0.0 to 4.0] Gamma of display monitor (typically 2.2 is correct)
#define CRTBrightness 1.2 //[1.0 to 3.0] Used to boost brightness a little. Default is 1.0
#define CRTScanlineIntensity 2.0 //[2.0 to 4.0] Scanlines intensity (use integer values preferably). Default is 2.0
#define CRTScanlineGaussian 1 //[0 or 1] Use the "new nongaussian scanlines bloom effect". Default is on


#define CRTCurvature 1 //[[0 or 1] "Barrel effect" enabled (1) or off (0)
#define CRTCurvatureRadius 2.0 //[0.0 to 2.0] Curvature Radius (only effective when Curvature is enabled). Default is 1.5
#define CRTCornerSize 0.0100 //[0.0000 to 0.0020] Higher values, more rounded corner. Default is 0.001
#define CRTDistance 2.00 //[0.00 to 4.00] Simulated distance from viewer to monitor. Default is 2.00
#define CRTAngleX 0.00 //[-0.20 to 0.20] Tilt angle in radians (X coordinates)
#define CRTAngleY -0.15 //[-0.20 to 0.20] Tilt angle in radians (Y coordinates). (Value of -0.15 gives the 'arcade tilt' look)
#define CRTOverScan 1.00 //[1.00 to 1.10] Overscan (e.g. 1.02 for 2% overscan). Default is 1.01
#define CRTOversample 0 //[0 or 1] Enable 3x oversampling of the beam profile (warning : performance hit)


/*-----------------------------------------------------------.
/ Bloom settings /
'-----------------------------------------------------------*/
#define BloomThreshold 23.25 //[0.00 to 50.00] Threshold for what is a bright light (that causes bloom) and what isn't.
#define BloomPower 2.0 //[0.000 to 8.000] Strength of the bloom
#define BloomWidth 0.0142 //[0.0000 to 1.0000] Width of the bloom


/*-----------------------------------------------------------.
/ HDR settings /
'-----------------------------------------------------------*/
#define HDRPower 0.67 //[0.00 to 8.00] Strangely lowering this makes the image brighter
#define radius2 0.83 //[0.00 to 8.00] Raising this seems to make the effect stronger and also brighter


/*-----------------------------------------------------------.
/ LumaSharpen settings /
'-----------------------------------------------------------*/
// -- Sharpening --
#define sharp_strength 1.00 //[0.10 to 3.00] Strength of the sharpening
#define sharp_clamp 0.035 //[0.000 to 1.000] Limits maximum amount of sharpening a pixel recieves - Default is 0.035


// -- Advanced sharpening settings --
#define pattern 2 //[1|2|3|4] Choose a sample pattern. 1 = Fast, 2 = Normal, 3 = Wider, 4 = Pyramid shaped.
#define offset_bias 1.0 //[0.0 to 6.0] Offset bias adjusts the radius of the sampling pattern.
//I designed the pattern for offset_bias 1.0, but feel free to experiment.


// -- Debug sharpening settings --
#define show_sharpen 0 //[0 or 1] Visualize the strength of the sharpen (multiplied by 4 to see it better)


/*----------------------------------------------------------.
/ Levels settings /
'----------------------------------------------------------*/


#define Levels_black_point 16 //[0 to 255] The black point is the new black - literally. Everything darker than this will become completely black. Default is 16.0
#define Levels_white_point 235 //[0 to 255] The new white point. Everything brighter than this becomes completely white. Default is 235.0


//Colors between the two points will stretched, which increases contrast, but details above and below the points are lost (this is called clipping).




/*-----------------------------------------------------------.
/ TECHNICOLOR settings /
'-----------------------------------------------------------*/
#define TechniAmount 0.4 //[0.00 to 1.00]
#define TechniPower 4.0 //[0.00 to 8.00]
#define redNegativeAmount 0.88 //[0.00 to 1.00]
#define greenNegativeAmount 0.88 //[0.00 to 1.00]
#define blueNegativeAmount 0.88 //[0.00 to 1.00]




/*-----------------------------------------------------------.
/ Cineon DPX settings /
'-----------------------------------------------------------*/
#define Red 8.0 //[1.0 to 15.0]
#define Green 8.0 //[1.0 to 15.0]
#define Blue 8.0 //[1.0 to 15.0]


#define ColorGamma 2.5 //[0.1 to 2.5] Adjusts the colorfulness of the effect in a manner similar to Vibrance. 1.0 is neutral.
#define DPXSaturation 3.0 //[0.0 to 8.0] Adjust saturation of the effect. 1.0 is neutral.


#define RedC 0.36 //[0.60 to 0.20]
#define GreenC 0.36 //[0.60 to 0.20]
#define BlueC 0.34 //[0.60 to 0.20]


#define Blend 0.2 //[0.00 to 1.00] How strong the effect should be.




/*-----------------------------------------------------------.
/ Monochrome settings /
'-----------------------------------------------------------*/
#define Monochrome_conversion_values float3(0.18,0.41,0.41) //[0.00 to 1.00] Percentage of RGB to include (should sum up to 1.00)




/*-----------------------------------------------------------.
/ Lift Gamma Gain settings /
'-----------------------------------------------------------*/
#define RGB_Lift float3(0.400, 0.400, 0.400) //[0.000 to 2.000] Adjust shadows for Red, Green and Blue.
#define RGB_Gamma float3(1.200, 1.200, 1.200) //[0.000 to 2.000] Adjust midtones for Red, Green and Blue
#define RGB_Gain float3(0.950, 0.950, 0.950) //[0.000 to 2.000] Adjust highlights for Red, Green and Blue


//Note that a value of 1.000 is a neutral setting that leave the color unchanged.


/*-----------------------------------------------------------.
/ Tonemap settings /
'-----------------------------------------------------------*/
#define Gamma 1.000 //[0.000 to 2.000] Adjust midtones. 1.000 is neutral. This setting does exactly the same as the one in Lift Gamma Gain, only with less control.


#define Exposure 0.000 //[-1.000 to 1.000] Adjust exposure


#define Saturation 0.000 //[-1.000 to 1.000] Adjust saturation


#define Bleach 0.000 //[0.000 to 1.000] Brightens the shadows and fades the colors


#define Defog 0.000 //[0.000 to 1.000] How much of the color tint to remove
#define FogColor float3(0.00, 0.00, 2.55) //[0.00 to 2.55, 0.00 to 2.55, 0.00 to 2.55] What color to remove - default is blue




/*-----------------------------------------------------------.
/ Vibrance settings /
'-----------------------------------------------------------*/
#define Vibrance 0.25 //[-1.00 to 1.00] Intelligently saturates (or desaturates if you use negative values) the pixels depending on their original saturation.
#define Vibrance_RGB_balance float3(1.00, 1.00, 1.00) //[-10.00 to 10.00,-10.00 to 10.00,-10.00 to 10.00] A per channel multiplier to the Vibrance strength so you can give more boost to certain colors over others




/*-----------------------------------------------------------.
/ Curves settings /
'-----------------------------------------------------------*/
#define Curves_mode 0 //[0|1|2] Choose what to apply contrast to. 0 = Luma, 1 = Chroma, 2 = both Luma and Chroma. Default is 0 (Luma)
#define Curves_contrast 0.15 //[-1.00 to 1.00] The amount of contrast you want


// -- Advanced curve settings --
#define Curves_formula 2 //[1|2|3|4|5|6|7|8|9|10] The contrast s-curve you want to use.
//1 = Sine, 2 = Abs split, 3 = Smoothstep, 4 = Exp formula, 5 = Simplified Catmull-Rom (0,0,1,1), 6 = Perlins Smootherstep
//7 = Abs add, 8 = Techicolor Cinestyle, 9 = Parabola, 10 = Half-circles.
//Note that Technicolor Cinestyle is practically identical to Sine, but runs slower. In fact I think the difference might only be due to rounding errors.
//I prefer 2 myself, but 3 is a nice alternative with a little more effect (but harsher on the highlight and shadows) and it's the fastest formula.


/*-----------------------------------------------------------.
/ Sepia settings /
'-----------------------------------------------------------*/
#define ColorTone float3(1.40, 1.10, 0.90) //[0.00 to 2.55, 0.00 to 2.55, 0.00 to 2.55] What color to tint the image
#define GreyPower 0.11 //[0.00 to 1.00] How much desaturate the image before tinting it
#define SepiaPower 0.58 //[0.00 to 1.00] How much to tint the image




/*-----------------------------------------------------------.
/ Vignette settings /
'-----------------------------------------------------------*/
#define VignetteType 1 //[1|2|3] 1 = Original, 2 = New, 3 = TV style
#define VignetteRatio 4.00 //[0.15 to 6.00] Sets a width to height ratio. 1.00 (1/1) is perfectly round, while 1.60 (16/10) is 60 % wider than it's high.
#define VignetteRadius 2.00 //[-1.00 to 3.00] lower values = stronger radial effect from center
#define VignetteAmount -0.01 //[-2.00 to 1.00] Strength of black. -2.00 = Max Black, 1.00 = Max White.
#define VignetteSlope 16 //[2 to 16] How far away from the center the change should start to really grow strong (odd numbers cause a larger fps drop than even numbers)
#define VignetteCenter float2(0.500, 0.500) //[0.000 to 1.000, 0.000 to 1.000] Center of effect for VignetteType 1. 2 and 3 do not obey this setting.




/*-----------------------------------------------------------.
/ Dither settings /
'-----------------------------------------------------------*/
#define dither_method 1 //[1 or 2] 1 = Ordered dithering (very good and very fast), 2 = Random dithering (different dithering but not as fast)


//Note that the patterns used by Dither, makes an image harder to compress.
//This can make your screenshots and video recordings take up more space.




/*-----------------------------------------------------------.
/ Border settings /
'-----------------------------------------------------------*/
#define border_width float2(1,20) //[0 to 2048, 0 to 2048] (X,Y)-width of the border. Measured in pixels.
#define border_color float3(0, 0, 0) //[0 to 255, 0 to 255, 0 to 255] What color the border should be. In integer RGB colors, meaning 0,0,0 is black and 255,255,255 is full white.




/*-----------------------------------------------------------.
/ Splitscreen settings /
'-----------------------------------------------------------*/
#define splitscreen_mode 1 //[1|2|3|4|5|6] 1 = Vertical 50/50 split, 2 = Vertical 25/50/25 split, 3 = Vertical 50/50 angled split,
// 4 = Horizontal 50/50 split, 5 = Horizontal 25/50/25 split, 6 = Curvy vertical 50/50 split


/*-----------------------------------------------------------.
/ Custom settings /
'-----------------------------------------------------------*/
//You can write your own effect by editing custom.h and then put settings for it here

[gecko]

Got it working, sort of. My reflections on metal and glass have gotten all messed up. Did you have this problem?

[MajorMagee]

I haven't noticed anything like that, but I'm using it for installs where I've already modified the m3d files to be compatible with Shader Specular Shine enabled in Win 7.

[gecko]

Me too. Specular effects are fine, but anything that uses the environment map isn't working.

[gecko]

Fixed! It turned out to be a shaders tweak I had made and forgot about as it had no effect in DX8 but messed it up running in DX9. Also, the format the .dds cube map texture is saved in is important. The stock texture works fine, but others don't and need to be converted.

[gecko]

I just read the of the thread, wow! He's got bump mapping and self shadows working! And if it works there it will work here.

[MajorMagee]

Yes indeed, this is getting really interesting now.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=t-METwIe0LQ

[gecko]

:jawdrop: Cant believe this is CFS3. Wow!

[Pat Pattle]

How on earth are they getting self-shadowing and reflection with cfs3??? Is that modelled in somehow or to do with the dx9?

I didn't think that was possible, yes very interesting indeed.....

[gecko]

Very Interesting Indeed!
3756

3757

[MajorMagee]

I just tried the new self-shadow version and it looks great, but has a problem with double rendering the cockpit where one is normal and the other turns with Track IR.

It turns out that it's related to having labels turned on and it doesn't happen in WOFF, just OFF, and CFS3.

[Pat Pattle]

The shadows look great Daniel!

I've followed the install to the letter but it doesn't work for me :(
I'm probably being Mr thicky, does it only work in W7?

[gecko]

Did you grab the dxd8.ini from the first post in that thread?

[Pat Pattle]

I've got all the files/downloads etc. It's on a test install though, think I'll try again on Stock one in case I've modded some files back along.

[mongoose]

When you guys have sorted this all out, perhaps a pdf to download in the library or something?

[popsaka]

Two things: Is this enabling a more articulate shadow? ...and Help, I can't recall how to shut the labels in CFS3... hits. dialog, etc.

...and also many thanx for some great research... --its the sort of thing that makes this forum rule IMHO! :pop4:

[gecko]

The shadows are real time and animated - see the video. We've not done any of this (just beta tested), Ankor over at the WOFF forums is the creator.

I think ctrl+shift+l is the default labels command.

[MajorMagee]

The Shadow and Glint version of his d3d8.dll is now fully compatible with all versions of CFS3. (no more cockpit errors when labels are turned on)

[gecko]

How has it been performing in cfs3 for you? It still crashes a lot on me.

[MajorMagee]

It's running fine, and looks stunning.

4272

[gecko]

In normal CFS3 too? What are your config settings?

[MajorMagee]

I've been putting it in all 14 of my different installs of CFS3 this afternoon, and I've now experienced a couple of kick-outs to the desktop.

There does seem to be a problem with any aircraft model that uses reflectance layer textures (white bands, etc.), but I just use the Num Pad 0 key to turn the whole thing off when things get wonky like that.

I've now toned down the Glint by editing the shader file to:
float sunStrength = mul(arrDirLights[0].vDiffuse.rgb, float3(1,1,1))*0.5
(instead of the default multiplier of 10 as shown in the picture of the Nieuport)

The self-shadowing really is a big jump in bringing the look of CFS3 up to date with other sims. :encouragement:

[MajorMagee]

I run everything on all fives except for MAW when I want to fly the Polesti Mission and have to cut it back to threes to get all the way into Romania.

[gecko]

Yeah, I usually get a ctd within the first couple seconds, sometimes a bit longer and sometimes I can actually fly without problems. This does not happen in WOFF, it runs smoothly there, I'm trying to figure out what the difference is.

[MajorMagee]

I've figured out how to hex edit the m3d file for the planes with a reflectance layer so they're compatible with the self-shadowing and glint ded8.dll.

[gecko]

Did you remove the reflection or find a way to make it compatible? I have the issue with planes that don't have a reflective texture as well. It seems to eat my gpu alive in the first few seconds for some reason. WOFF doesn't.

[MajorMagee]

I removed the reflectance layer.

[HouseHobbit]

I run everything on all fives except for MAW when I want to fly the Polesti Mission and have to cut it back to threes to get all the way into Romania.

Yea when I built the Polesti missions I discovered the need to set the sliders at 3 to prevent a CRT in MAW also..

[Daiwilletti]

It's running fine, and looks stunning.

4272

This is looking really exciting, Majormagee. With a bit more tweaking for reliability it could really drag CFS3 past the noughties in terms of look and feel. :ernaehrung004:

[MajorMagee]

In order to correct the M3D files that get disturbed (planes with relectance layers typically have sections that turn white, become transparent, etc.) by the new d3d8.dll please start with reading this Tutorial again. http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforums/showthread.php?40606-Projected-knowledge-base/page3

Always start by making a back-up copy of your original M3D files.

Each material is represented by a stream of 36 bytes of code (each one ranging from 0 to ff, that is 255 decimal); (I set my Hex editor to 36 columns wide so the patterns repeat making it easier to see where to edit.)
this is the meaning of the magic numbers for the first stream

00 00 00 00 type of drawing (solid, line, etc...), usually set to zeros (The 3rd set will be FF for problem aircraft and needs to be changed to 00 Be careful to only do this for rows that actually have a reflective texture file in it as this also can be FF associated with something else.)

ff ff ff ff diffuse color (RGB components plus intensity)
lower intensity for transparency effects

00 00 00 ff ambient color (RGB components plus intensity), not used

ff ff ff ff specular factor (RGB components plus intensity) (For Win 7 I have these all at 30 30 30 FF to avoid over bright reflections)

00 00 00 43 glossiness, usually goes from 00 00 00 40 to 00 00 00 44 (For Win 7 I have this at 42)

00 00 number (see above) of diffuse texture, ff ff if none

01 00 number of specular texture, ff ff if none

ff ff number of reflective texture, none in this plane (If these have a dds file number here it needs to be changed to FFFF)

ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff unknown and possibly not used

[MajorMagee]

Some of the cockpits were showing transparent patches through the instrument panel. I've discovered that these are related to a glass layer in some models that is placed between the eye point and the instruments. It's a little tricky to identify the line where this glass layer resides, but if the glossiness entries are something like FF FF FF 3F and there is no texture file called out for that line they probably need to be changed to 00 00 00 3F.

4937

[MajorMagee]

So far I've found this with the dpc F86, Mig 15, AD4/AH1, and some versions of the F4U, and P51D.

[MajorMagee]

I'm going through all my installs and fixing the m3d files for compatibility with both Win 7 Specular Enabled, and AnKor's self-shader dll. It only takes me a few moments to fix each one, but with something over a thousand to do it's quite a project. If anyone feels uncomfortable doing the hex edits, but wants the benefit of the beautiful new renderings, I can help with instructions. Otherwise, just let me know if there is something in particular you want and I can probably send it to you. So far I've completed Rising Sun, PTO Solomon Islands (with many extra aircraft added in over the years), DPC Korea, All Jets, Firepower, Battle Of Britain, and OFF. I still have MAW and ETO to go through but the end is in sight.

[MajorMagee]

The March 9th version fixes a number of issues including being compatible with the planes that have a reflective layer.

http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3881675/64/DirectX_8_to_9_converter_March

[Daiwilletti]

The March 9th version fixes a number of issues including being compatible with the planes that have a reflective layer.

http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3881675/64/DirectX_8_to_9_converter_March

Thanks very much for your sterling efforts, MajorMagee :eagerness:. This looks like a significant addition to available CFS3 upgrades.

D

[gecko]

This version fixed my stability issues in CFS3, the crashes seem to be gone now.:jump: I believe Ankor plans to redo the CFS3 reflections in the future, but it's a lower priority for the time being, for now they are simply disabled. I'm holding off on doing a lot of hex editing on the models until we see how it is in final form.

[MajorMagee]

http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3881675/66/DirectX_8_to_9_converter_March

This one (10 Mar 14) fixes a memory leak when viewing the WOFF in-game map.

[Snaker]

According to the thread over at Simhq it looks like he is adding reflection and bump mapping to the water!!! With the self-shadowing and now possibly improved water all I can say is wow!! I can't believe this is happening to CFS3.....

:encouragement:

[gecko]

He made even the stock water look good!

[MajorMagee]

I've converted all of my installs to this standard, and I'm never going back.

[Pat Pattle]

The man is a genius!


http://simhq.com/forum/files/usergals/2014/03/full-32542-75732-cfs3_water_specular.jpg

[ndicki]

Bloody hell, that looks good! And this is in W7?

[MajorMagee]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Ascr8syLP2M

[Bravo/4]

Well, for me the water in CFS3 (eye candy wise) was its biggest let down, now if this and the self shadowing is working without problems, it's just a fantastic improvement!

I've not tried any of this stuff yet, but now I want to, does it work with XP, or is it W7 specific?

[gecko]

I don't know if it's been tried in XP, but it works well in Windows 7.

[rocketred]

hoping win8.1 can also be utilized since in time it will be all plus .................



will try on mine this week from above posting on water looks excellent and makes this cfs3 a high valued sim

[MajorMagee]

He has not released the water bump mapping version yet, but it could be soon.

[Snaker]

Does anybody know how this works with Vista? Also. - does the latest version fix the transparent gauges so one doesn't need to edit things ?

Thanks

[greycap.raf]

The Bf 109 shot shows some very promising shine too, if it's Windows 7 and a stock model there might be some hope of the speculars working. If they don't - XP, here we go again.

[gecko]

The shine works very well in Win7, has a very realistic feel to it and can be toned down as desired.

[MajorMagee]

It turns out that there were very few models where the gauges were an issue. Since I had already modified those files I can't tell if they would still need to be repaired, but my guess is that it won't be an issued for you, and I can help you fix it if it is.

[Snaker]

It turns out that there were very few models where the gauges were an issue. Since I had already modified those files I can't tell if they would still need to be repaired, but my guess is that it won't be an issued for you, and I can help you fix it if it is.


Thank you for the reply and the information. Once I get this set up I may take you up in your offer.

:eagerness:

[dewoitine]

I did not understand everything and that does not seem to work under xp.

[MajorMagee]

Another amazing water video from AnKor.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oak4Iozbpnc

Unfortunately for us it looks like the first release of this capability will be for exclusive use in WOFF.

[gecko]

That looks really really good. Having read his post, I suspect we may be able to find a way around any compatibility issues with CFS3 on our end, but we'll just have to wait and see.

[MajorMagee]

I've discovered one additional glitch with the current version of the self shadowing dll. This was a bit more difficult to diagnose since it didn't involve the M3D files this time. For the AvH 1% files there are some aircraft that reference panel lights in the effects section of the xpd file. The way the AvH effects are set up there is some sort of conflict with the new d3d8.dll that causes these to show up as a circle of colored light on the cockpit dash, or front windshield. All you have to do is edit out the panel light effect lines from the xpd and they're gone.

Meteor
Hellcat
Lancaster
Spitfire
TBF
XP55
P51D
P38J
L5B
B25C
B17G
I15
Bf109G
Ju88
Ju52
Fw190D

[gosd]

http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3881675/66/DirectX_8_to_9_converter_March

This one (10 Mar 14) fixes a memory leak when viewing the WOFF in-game map.

I downloaded the tree items in this file into my game. What else should I do to get the wather reflection in win7 ?

[gecko]

Nothing as of yet, the water reflection version hasn't been released yet.

[gosd]

So how does one to the version shown on post #58?

[MajorMagee]

That was done by the developer AnKor.

A couple of us are communicating with him privately, and will keep everyone notified as things progress.

If you'd like to encourage him you may make a donation to him here in the first post. http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3881675/1

[MajorMagee]

I've discovered one additional glitch with the current version of the self shadowing dll. This was a bit more difficult to diagnose since it didn't involve the M3D files this time. For the AvH 1% files there are some aircraft that reference panel lights in the effects section of the xpd file. The way the AvH effects are set up there is some sort of conflict with the new d3d8.dll that causes these to show up as a circle of colored light on the cockpit dash, or front windshield. All you have to do is edit out the panel light effect lines from the xpd and they're gone.

Meteor
Hellcat
Lancaster
Spitfire
TBF
XP55
P51D
P38J
L5B
B25C
B17G
I15
Bf109G
Ju88
Ju52
Fw190D

I found a few more in my PTO install.

Hawk 51
F6F
Ki84
A6M2
A6M5
N1K2
D3A1
F4F3

[MajorMagee]

The more I work with Andrey the more impressed I am with his ability to rapidly figure out what's going under the CFS3 hood.

[HouseHobbit]

This is all very fascinating to me..
I have had the chance yet to dance with this yet.

Haven't found a resolution setting on my Win 7 machine that will allow WOFF to run without crashing??
Tried the native settings, and all resolutions settings(32 bit), so far still getting the
WOFF DLL. message.
And I am very puzzled..
I Will put all of this on hold for now..

Doing ETO work for the Team.
As soon as I have the ETO work finished I plan to jump into this with both my furry feets..

[rocketred]

you go girl


the hobbit

[MajorMagee]

Here's today's update.

http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3930178/Re_DirectX_8_to_9_converter_Ma#Post3930178 (http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3930178/Re_DirectX_8_to_9_converter_Ma#Post3930178)

As he warned, the water looks very strange in CFS3. I'll try tweaking some of the parameters to see if I can get it looking better.

[dewoitine]

I don't understand :dizzy:

When I puts "shaders30" file and "D3D8.dll", CF3 does not open.

[MajorMagee]

Some have had that trouble. First thing to try is re-reunning CFS3config.exe, and explicitly setting the screen resolution again. Also, make sure you have the d3d8.ini with the first parameter for anti-aliasing set to 1 rather than the default 0.

[gecko]

Yep, it looks great in WOFF, but I'll need to do some tweaking to the CFS3 files to get it working right.

[Daiwilletti]

Some have had that trouble. First thing to try is re-reunning CFS3config.exe, and explicitly setting the screen resolution again. Also, make sure you have the d3d8.ini with the first parameter for anti-aliasing set to 1 rather than the default 0.

Thanks I'll need to try that too. The D3D9 stuff is fine but the D3D8 stuff was causing lockups. Funnily enough just the D3D9 stuff on its own was an improvement, especially with a good shaders.xml file.

[MajorMagee]

The water ends up looking quite different in the various different installs of CFS3 I have with AnKor's latest version.

My quick test in Solomon Islands this morning looked terrible. Most of my other versions look generally okay.

It turns out that the alpha channel in the effects\fxtextures\h20d_##.dds files has to be pretty finely textured, and the color variations have to be subtle (no harsh shade transitions) for it to bump map realistically.

I'm still not sure I like what it does to the water's color in all cases (generally it turns nearly black). That's supposed to be controlled by the effects\fxtextures\cfs3h2o.dds file. I'll have to try tuning it to something that will get it to render closer to the original colors.

[gosd]

Here's today's update.

http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3930178/Re_DirectX_8_to_9_converter_Ma#Post3930178 (http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3930178/Re_DirectX_8_to_9_converter_Ma#Post3930178)

As he warned, the water looks very strange in CFS3. I'll try tweaking some of the parameters to see if I can get it looking better.

Installed the latest version;great cockpit shadows but lots the cockpit light.the colors of the planes also seem a bit light (pale).

[gecko]

Try porting over the WOFF panoramic_cubic_test.dds to your other installs, and swapping around different cfs3h2o.dds textures and you ought to get rid of the black coloration. It's starting to look quite good in my install. There's lots to explore with this new version and some great features to make use of.

[MajorMagee]

Installed the latest version;great cockpit shadows but lots the cockpit light.the colors of the planes also seem a bit light (pale).

The light colors are usually related to the specular layer, and that needs to be fixed by hex editing the m3d files.

[rocketred]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v21m_p7d2A4

[AnKor]

Hi!

I've finally registered here and will be able to provide some clarifications. Unfortunately accessing this forum is a bit convoluted from here, so I won't be posting too often.
The DirectX 9 mod is generally intended to be used with WOFF, but since people still play CFS3 I will be trying to keep it compatible as well. Currently main issues are reflective surfaces and cockpit lights which weren't implemented because they aren't used by WOFF. There are also some glitches with certain 3rd party models as mentioned above.
I'm working with gecko and MajorMagee to improve CFS3 compatibility, so eventually I hope to get rid of all these issues.

Minimum system requirements for self shadowing are AMD HD 4xxx series or NVidia 8xxx series. These cards are from around 2008, so I believe it is not a problem for most people. Modern built-in Intel graphics should also work, but they are quite slow. I'm using Windows 7 for development and haven't tested it on XP, but I don't know any reason why it shouldn't work there.

The first thing to try if the game fails to start with my mod is running cfs3config.exe and selecting screen resolution again.

And just one more note - although my mod enables the use of SweetFX, it is not connected to it in any other way :)

[popsaka]

Just wanna say Thanks so very much to all :applause:

[Pat Pattle]

Ankor,

These mods are THE best thing to happen to cfs3 and it's derivatives. Thank you for all your efforts. They bring them bang up to date in the graphics department. Thanks also to Andy and Daniel for helping.

I'm on XP and can't get it working but I do intend buying a new PC so hope I'll be joining the brave new world soon.

Cheers!

Clive

ps I'm l using your mouse view mod and liking it a lot, another break though. Thank you!

[HouseHobbit]

Thank You Ankor very much for this work, it is Most welcomed..

I am spending time today to try to sort this out for CFS3 from the files from Andy, taking a break from my ETO team work.
I am Very interested in this addition to our beloved sims..
Thank to all for this work..
And there is Much rejoicing!
:applause: :applause: :applause:

[rocketred]

PISSED , around in win8 ... heres what i got , no idea how -lol


5943

[phrog_phixer]

rocketred, that actually look awesome...river's a little green tho

[rocketred]

beats all black ...lol, yea still at it ....hoping oneday ... the master ankor of this great addon , will make and see fit , cfs3 groupies all get one nice patch


many tks

[MajorMagee]

I've developed several new panoramic_cubic_test.dds files to correct the reflectivity and dark grey color for AnKor's latest water shader files in CFS3. One of these will need to be used for anyone that doesn't have OFF or WOFF to borrow those files from.

5952

Gecko is working on modifying the chfsh2o.dds files to fine tune the water colors. (I'm actually beginning to like the green color of the water in ETO)

[sdsbolt]

nice to see such an improvement!

[MajorMagee]

Just to document what I discovered working on this the file format can be either DXT1, DXT3, or DXT5, saved with the Cube Map option. (The optional Alpha layer does not currently appear to have any effect.)

The file is made up of six 256 x 256 patches representing each side of a cube. The sequence is looking East, West, Up, Down, North, South. Each one needs to seamlessly blend into the adjoining one or you will see a line along the boundary where they come together at NE, SE, SW, NW. It's easiest to draw a complete N, E, S, W 1024 x 256 panorama image, and then move each 256 x 256 direction patch into its proper location in the sequence along with your looking up and looking down images.

The far distant water reflections start at the mid-line of the patch and go up from there as the reflection get's closer to the viewer so anything you draw below that won't show up on the water.

The higher the contrast in the sky image, the more distinct the reflections become. Some amount of coloration comes through into the reflection and changes the look of the water, so you can have blue sky reflected on top of green water.

[AnKor]

I'm on XP and can't get it working
I forgot to mention here - try installing the latest update for DirectX 9 from here: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=35
It may happen that you don't have the latest one.


ps I'm l using your mouse view mod and liking it a lot, another break though. Thank you!
Good to know that it is useful :)
If only I had time to improve it further.

[gosd]

A good way to check the water collor is running in ETO era2 whatif the "ETO BOA Swordfish Cat Launch HH 038" mission witch features a raft with green dye. If the wather coller is too dark the green dye will not show.

[rocketred]

the fx manager for this thing is good , got the shione want the colour id like blue more , likely by spending weeks shifting the variantions in this sweet fx config blue will come

its the fine tuning at least with win 8


heres what i got , again so far

5976

[MajorMagee]

That looks like the dark grey water color I was getting in everything before I changed the panoramic files.

[gecko]

For now it's kind of up for people to experiment with, but rest assured Ankor's new water effects do work in CFS3 as long as you have the right textures to go with it, and a cohesive set of textures is currently in the works so that we can all enjoy it.

[Pat Pattle]

I forgot to mention here - try installing the latest update for DirectX 9 from here: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/downl...ils.aspx?id=35 (http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=35)
It may happen that you don't have the latest one.




That did the trick, thanks Ankor! :) It works in XP! My gfx is a lowly 8400GS so with SweetFX enabled my fps is at a crawl. However if I disable it there's not much of a drop except when in-cockpit and I still get the shadows and reflections.

I have black water though, does anyone have a set of files they could send me please?

http://i497.photobucket.com/albums/rr332/Pat_Pattle/CFS3_BoB_Ankor_mod_zpsb1af024f.jpg

[MajorMagee]

The files you need are in post #99.

[rocketred]

so far tinkler again it appears for now best i can get /// with tweaks in win8


good imho


many tks

6033

[HouseHobbit]

WOW Joshua that is amazing!!
I am very impressed!!
:applause: :applause: :applause:

[HouseHobbit]

For now it's kind of up for people to experiment with, but rest assured Ankor's new water effects do work in CFS3 as long as you have the right textures to go with it, and a cohesive set of textures is currently in the works so that we can all enjoy it.

All this has me completely fascinated..
I really need to sort out why my Win 7 machine will not run using these files..
WOW!
:applause: :applause:

[HouseHobbit]

GOT IT!!
Much rejoicing!!

This is from my Airwar In Europe set up of CFS3.
From Master Jaycee, I think the water textures look really good now.
Got it sorted out with multiple CFS3 set ups, one must have a separate SweetFX config in the main folder aliased only to this CFS3 .exe
Don't work as well if you use a single SweetFX for all the various CFS3 and expansion config settings.
At least in my Win 7 machine..

[HouseHobbit]

In A Virgin ETO 1.40 it is much more Green looking then the other CFS3 "Airwar in Europe" install I have,
But still isn't too nasty.
Don't know which files to change between the "Airwar in Europe" and Stock ETO to make ETO look as blue as the "Airwar in Europe" set up??
Yea having a ball here, this is SO Cool!!

[rocketred]

all needed is a blue"""""" colour more , in any case ,,,,,,its down to lol

[MajorMagee]

It's the cfs3h2o.dds file in effects/fxtextures that sets the color of the water.

[rocketred]

but changed the dds file and got great colour and shince and reflection ,,,,, imho , not green .....deep blue



thanks major ..... it works changing them


61186119

[HouseHobbit]

Experimenting with all of this in ETO 1.40.
Like the changes, have this dark blue that is kind of nice.
Just playing around with it all..

[rocketred]

this works well now for us , the final cut seems excellent


61306129

[dewoitine]

I can't with xp.
Can you explain me how you put any files in ETO ?
I have SweetFX but after...nothing !

[HouseHobbit]

All of this is on my Win 7 machine, I have not tried any of this in XP yet.
ALL in Win7

I loaded everything into ETO 1.40 and made sure I had the directx9c runtime files in Win 7..
You Must start the sim, using the SweetFX program not the master bat files(Era switcher) in ETO
I have learned what ever ERA I want to fly with this loaded.
I start ETO with the ERA switcher, the go the the ERA I want..
I then shut down ETO and restart using SweetFX program.This ensures I have the water effects when it runs.

As I said Haven't tried this in my XP computer yet..
Had to give it all a go in the WIN7 machine, where the "shine" is missing in the operating system and Directx 10..

[Pat Pattle]

I can't with xp.
Can you explain me how you put any files in ETO ?
I have SweetFX but after...nothing !

Do you have the latest version of DirectX that Ankor posted a link for?

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/downl...ils.aspx?id=35 (http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=35)

Once I installed that it worked ok.

I sorted the water problem out, I still had some of Daniels environment texting files which were conflicting.

Now I think this looks bl**dy good! If you didn't know you'd never think it was cfs3 (apart from the dodgy modelling on the tail, oops)

http://i497.photobucket.com/albums/rr332/Pat_Pattle/cfs3Ankormod2_zpsdd1be4e3.jpg

[hairyspin]

But you would recognise the authentic south coast water colour, Clive. That does look very good and the self-shadowing looks great: I'll have to try this myself when I get the project out the door! :applause: :applause: :applause:

[HouseHobbit]

Do you have the latest version of DirectX that Ankor posted a link for?

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/downl...ils.aspx?id=35 (http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=35)

Once I installed that it worked ok.

I sorted the water problem out, I still had some of Daniels environment texting files which were conflicting.

Now I think this looks bl**dy good! If you didn't know you'd never think it was cfs3 (apart from the dodgy modelling on the tail, oops)

http://i497.photobucket.com/albums/rr332/Pat_Pattle/cfs3Ankormod2_zpsdd1be4e3.jpg

Beautiful!! Well done, indeed!
:applause: :applause: :applause:

[rocketred]

the besy way is ;loading it all smacking it all in your cfs3..i have mixed advanced - i got cfs3-fp-eto all in one .....


then i slap in generfx,,,sweet thingie and all the updates ....and then play with majors addons , and see which one is best with wAter


so iadd

dx9 and dx8 folders and shaders and open and add as dllr , files , as is, then start the fxsweet conig thingie to start


but again what finsihed hte look was the tip from master major on the choice and one from the dds water updates he submitted

[rocketred]

ALSO I REMOVED A FILE IN THE FX FOLDER OF EFFECTS ....

I think major , master ,emtioned something about cfs3h2:redfire::redfire:6146o ... in fxtures controls colour ... i found one of em green outlined and all just removed it and he was right

all nice slender blue


6145

[Shessi]

OMG! :jawdrop:

Pat, just superb, that looks just like FS2004.....

And the other various water texs, are fantastic.

I'm so glad for you guys, with great ai and mission building anyway, and now with this shine effect. This is what CFS3 should have been like.

I wouldn't be suprised if M$ knew they could do it, just look at Fs9 shine/reflection, but the technology wasn't up to it, without further affecting FR's?

Cheers

Shessi

[AnKor]

I believe CFS3 graphics was outdated even by 2003 standards, and at the same time it was still FPS hungry. I don't know how they managed to do that :)

And now for something completely different:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4-shLNwLyA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4-shLNwLyA

I've managed to create a working reflector sight. It is not yet fully compatible with all aircraft models, but it works (obviously it requires my dll to work).

[HouseHobbit]

Master Ankor, that is amazing!!
WOW!!
Thank You!!
:applause: :applause: :applause:

[gecko]

Wow! That was fast! Incredible work! It's hard to believe this is CFS3, but then again my ideas of what was possible and what was not with this sim have getting redefined a lot lately.:dizzy::jawdrop:

[rocketred]

Master Ankor


MANY TKS ....


6173

[hairyspin]

Ankor, you'll just have to spill the beans on that one, this modeller would LOVE to include that with my CFS3 model. :jump: :jump: :jump: :jump:

[phrog_phixer]

The screenies and videos are simply incredible! I would certainly love to see these improvements in my installs...unfortunately I am time and admittedly tech challenged. Will you pros develop an all encompassing package for these improvements?
Cudos to all who are working to keep CFS3 alive! :applause:

[AnKor]

Ankor, you'll just have to spill the beans on that one, this modeller would LOVE to include that with my CFS3 model.

Well, I intend to make it compatible with stock models, so it shouldn't be a problem to include with a custom model.
Generally it will be a matter of setting glossiness for the gunsight glass to some special value - most likely via hex-editing the m3d, because I doubt GMAX will allow it to be set this way. My DLL will detect this "magic" value and apply the reflector code for this object. Simple, isn't it? And what is also important - has no side-effects for those who do not use my dll :)
I will provide more details when I release an update which supports this feature.

Two notes, though.
You may have noticed in my video that the reticle is clipped earlier than it reaches the left or right edge of the glass. This is because the reticle on P51D model is actually painted on a smaller square transparent object and that wider glass is just a decoration behind it.
And second, more important: currently it only works with those models which have the gunsight glass (or that object which has the reticle on it) set straight. Tilted one like on Spitfire won't work right and I have yet to find a way to correct it, which may prove to be difficult.

[hairyspin]

...You may have noticed in my video that the reticle is clipped earlier than it reaches the left or right edge of the glass. This is because the reticle on P51D model is actually painted on a smaller square transparent object and that wider glass is just a decoration behind it.
And second, more important: currently it only works with those models which have the gunsight glass (or that object which has the reticle on it) set straight. Tilted one like on Spitfire won't work right and I have yet to find a way to correct it, which may prove to be difficult.

Roger that Ankor, that will be very easy to work with. I'm already getting impatient, lol... :jump:

[Daiwilletti]

The screenies and videos are simply incredible! I would certainly love to see these improvements in my installs...unfortunately I am time and admittedly tech challenged. Will you pros develop an all encompassing package for these improvements?
Cudos to all who are working to keep CFS3 alive! :applause:

I second that - I hope there will be a SIMPLE guide perhaps with links to requisite files and an explanation of what needs to go where? For example I don't understand where Sweet FX fits, I thought Ankor said his mod was stand-alone? There are about 100 posts on this thread, and a sticky with a single post would be most excellent, pretty please?

:ernaehrung004:

[gecko]

Ankor has work going on improving things on several different fronts (seems like more every day). As it unfolds we will be working on a way to bring it to everybody with minimum hassle.

[rocketred]

tweaked ,,,bit but seems best i can get not knowing much .......win8,

6221

[rocketred]

6222tweaked ,,,bit but seems best i can get not knowing much .......win8,

6221

[Daiwilletti]

tweaked ,,,bit but seems best i can get not knowing much .......win8,

6221

SWEEEEET :encouragement:

[lewis11777]

Does this work on Win XP? I keep getting a black screen then back to my desktop???

[Pat Pattle]

Does this work on Win XP? I keep getting a black screen then back to my desktop???


Yes! :)

You need: Flight FX V1.0:
http://riseofflight.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=34103

Ankors latest files: http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3930178/Re_DirectX_8_to_9_converter_Ma#Post3930178



1) Place Ankors shaders30 and d3d files into the root of your cfs3 install

2) Install and run flight FX and set it to register your cfs3.exe file

3) Make sure you have the latest DirectX files installed. - http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/downl...ils.aspx?id=35 (http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=35)

4) Youll need Major Maggees modified panoramic files from post #99


And that should be it. I've heard SweetFX mentioned but afaik it's not needed with the latest files?

You don't need Flight FX enabled to get the shadows and water reflections but it does have to have your cfs3 install registered.

Good to see your still around Lewis. :)

[AnKor]

One correction to what Pat Pattle posted: you do NOT need SweetFX or FlightFX at all.
Those programs may be used with my mod to get some additional effects (bloom, more saturated colors, etc), but they are absolutely optional.

Two more things to try if it doesn't work even after the latest DirectX is installed (the link is in step #3 of Pat's post)
1. Run cfs3config.exe and select your screen resolution again (though I believe I have fixed this problem some time ago, but it is still useful to check).
2. Try disabling intro movie from cfs3config: File->Custom Settings and then Window->Overrides and check "Disable Intro Movie" there.

[Pat Pattle]

One correction to what Pat Pattle posted: you do NOT need SweetFX or FlightFX at all.
Those programs may be used with my mod to get some additional effects (bloom, more saturated colors, etc), but they are absolutely optional.

I suspected this and uninstalled Flight FX just leaving your files in place. However I was getting either a ctd or a freeze every time I exited cfs3. With flight FX installed but not enabled this doesn't happen. Maybe I have some conflicting files somewhere?

If indeed flight FX is NOT needed then that is even better! It's the shadowing and reflections that are the real deal here. You may just have saved cfs3 Ankor :)

[AnKor]

Maybe it was just a coincidence. I never heard of anyone having this kind of problems, and I don't use Flight FX when playing or testing.

[FireStorm II]

Lewis, from post #102:

" try installing the latest update for DirectX 9 from here: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/downl...ils.aspx?id=35 (http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=35) "

AnKor, you are a genius, and have just allowed CFS3 to move into it's second decade. Thank-you very much!

(I will attempt this myself when the dust settles... :) )

[lewis11777]

Clive and gentlemen thanks as always for your great willingness to assist. Just got home from work, now off with the wife to eat supper. Will be back shortly to try the set up again.

[lewis11777]

Clive in now way implying that you are not a gentlemen also my good sir!

[lewis11777]

Holy smokes, this is incredible!

Outstanding Work Ankor!

[lewis11777]

Good job to major magee and and the others who helped tune this up. Thanks Clive for the step by step! Only thing I noticed is the aircraft no longer have a shine on the finish, rather a dull finish. Is this inherent or can it be fixed?

[MajorMagee]

If you're in Win 7 make sure you have specular gloss enabled in the CFS3 shaders xml.

<ModelSpecularGloss Desc="Vertex lighting w/ Specular modulated by Gloss map"
Lighting="True" SpecularEnable="True"

[lewis11777]

Unfortunately I don't run any games on win 7, I have those all on a separate drive running on XP. Hopefully any future fixes will include XP. I kept all my games on that OS because some of my older games are not compatible above DX 10.

[HouseHobbit]

CFS3 Rising Sun Expansion
Okay this works well in XP SP3 Professional
P-4 /3.066 CPU duel core Asus 512 meg 8400 GTS video card
2 gig DDR Ram
Pro Platinum SB sound card

At 1280X 1024 resolution
45-55 FPS

Virgin Textures no add ins.

Have loaded SweetFX **set as active
With SweetFX Configurator **active
Launched from SweetFX Configurator

**Installed**
D3D8 Self Shadowing Mod 20140325

Thank you Master Ankor
And there is Much Rejoicing!

[Shessi]

Lewis,
Yes to ac shine with XP, just mod the shaders.xml in the main folder as stated, works with XP.

As the shine it too much I saw that MM stated

I've now toned down the Glint by editing the shader file to:
float sunStrength = mul(arrDirLights[0].vDiffuse.rgb, float3(1,1,1))*0.5
(instead of the default multiplier of 10 as shown in the picture of the Nieuport)

I've searched for where this is and no luck, can someone tell, ta.

Also I've installed Sweet_FX, and tried Ankors files but with the d3d8.dll the sim black boxes and fails to load. Remove just this dll file, leaving the others and all's well. Have latest DX files, re-set screen res and disabled movie. Re-started pc, but still fails.

Also Pat mentions Ankors 'shaders30' file, that is not in his pack, location? thanks


This is too good to miss!

Cheers

Shessi

[HouseHobbit]

I have a Question, Andy sent me a Shaders file with a set of files, early on in this.
Andy you will know.
When i loaded all the new effects for the water, I got a wonderful new water look, in Rising Sun
This with the original Shaders file in RS running this in XP
But I lost the shine on the aircraft..

I loaded the new shaders file from Andy, it restored the wonderful shine on the Aircraft, and had the water effects also..
*** But the water turned Green***
Screen shots below

What line in a Shaders file controls the Water tint/color??

***If I can change this and return the Beautiful Blue water (like the original shaders in RS)
And keep the shine on the Aircraft, this will be perfect***

Thanks Andy for you files on this, just getting a understanding of this in a small way as I experiment..

[gecko]

I see two things.

1. The color is controlled by cfs3h2o.dds. Open yours up and make sure it's the color you want. There are several different ones floating around so make sure the one you have for RS is blue. Or of course you can experiment by changing the color of the texture to try out new water colors you may like better. Also, run a search for that file name from the main directory and make sure you only have one in there. If you have more than one, one will be used sometimes and sometimes the other will be used.

2. All your screenshots have dark water on the horizon. You need a compatible panoramic_cubic_test.dds to fix this, which MajorMagee has posted - see post #99. As above, make certain there is only one present in any given install.

Hope that helps.

Daniel

[MajorMagee]

I don't see where I ever sent you a different cfs3h2o.dds file and as far as I know that is the only one that will turn the water green.

I looked at my RS install and that file looks blue and the shallow water is in the outline of Korea.

[HouseHobbit]

Hi Andy you sent me a shader file, that is all I changed between the two different pictures above..
Have not touched or changed any water texture .dds files..

I just loaded this into my Rising Sun Advanced install.
it has the NEW CFS3 Environment v2.0 -Rising Sun.zip installed.
The RS standard/Virgin install doesn't

It is amazing,
I have Andy's shader file, and the other installs added FlightFX, SweetFX_config etc.

All that is changed between the RS (virgin) and the RS (advanced) it has the: NEW CFS3 Environment v2.0 -Rising Sun
this works very well with the Master Ankor changes ..

Pearl harbor Dec 7 41, XP operating system

Going to transfer/import the files from this and try in in my Standard Virgin Rising sun install and see if it becomes a Beautiful as this..

Perfect for me..

[HouseHobbit]

Pearl harbor
too Cool!!

[MajorMagee]

If you're feeling brave you can experiment with the seawater.fx file. It can be modified with any text editor. Make a copy of your original, then change the line near the beginning from:

#define BaseOpacity 0.95

to

#define BaseOpacity 0.66

When you look straight down you'll be able to see under the surface and it looks like a shallow coral reef below the surface. If you look at more of an angle the waves and reflections are still there.

The shallow look is not appropriate for the deep water farther out from shore so you probably don't want this all the time, but this effect looks cool inside the harbor, and near the shore.

[ndicki]

I've just added Ankor's mod to MAW, and good grief, it's impressive! The light effects inside the cockpit are incredible - I'd never realised the extent to which they were missing.

I have not added any other mods, or touched any of the aircraft, beyond enabling specularity gloss in shaders.xml; this has made the aircraft a bit too shiny, some even far too shiny! And the sea goes very dark on the horizon when you're low down. These are certainly known problems!

Overall - it really is getting there! Huge well deserved thanks to Ankor and Andy and everybody else involved in making CFS3 better!

[MajorMagee]

It's really all AnKor's genius. gecko and I are just helping to work the bugs out and tune it up.

[mongoose]

I hope when all the bugs are sorted you guys will do a definitive upload or sticky for all this impressive stuff.

[gosd]

How can you add more than one game to the sweetFX and identify them seperatly?

[MajorMagee]

See post #14 on page one for step-by-step instructions and step 6 is where you can select a particular CFS3 install.

[MajorMagee]

If you want to try out some different wave patterns take a look at these from 2008 again.

http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforums/local_links.php?catid=158&linkid=17621

[lewis11777]

Thanks Shessi!



Lewis,
Yes to ac shine with XP, just mod the shaders.xml in the main folder as stated, works with XP.

As the shine it too much I saw that MM stated

I've now toned down the Glint by editing the shader file to:
float sunStrength = mul(arrDirLights[0].vDiffuse.rgb, float3(1,1,1))*0.5
(instead of the default multiplier of 10 as shown in the picture of the Nieuport)

I've searched for where this is and no luck, can someone tell, ta.

Also I've installed Sweet_FX, and tried Ankors files but with the d3d8.dll the sim black boxes and fails to load. Remove just this dll file, leaving the others and all's well. Have latest DX files, re-set screen res and disabled movie. Re-started pc, but still fails.

Also Pat mentions Ankors 'shaders30' file, that is not in his pack, location? thanks


This is too good to miss!

Cheers

Shessi

[Snaker]

I finally got a chance to get this installed and all I can say is WOW!!!! This thing makes CFS3 look like a whole new sim. The water and shadows are amazing. Thanks MajorMagee for the updated water files, those work great.

AnKor has done something that I never thought could be done. :ernaehrung004:

[HouseHobbit]

Master Ankor, has managed to make a completely new sim for CFS3 with His work.
Very Grateful
And there is Much Rejoicing!!
:applause: :jump: :applause:

[HouseHobbit]

Back in my Win 7 machine.(Kathy). Yea it is named..LOL!!
Loaded the files as I did in my XP machine
I have the beautiful water effects, darker then in Rising Sun, which I like
No Green in the water dark Blue. but not black.

Also what I was interested in seeing aircraft shine.
Boy!! do I have shine in Win 7!
Too much some aircraft it white-out some skins it is so bright.

Never expected to say that about Win 7
On this p-51 it looks really good, just a bit too bright
need to adjust the shine level a little lower now..
Can some one tell me where this setting for aircraft shine is, and where to adjust this. Thanks..

[HouseHobbit]

Yea the Win7 machine has shine!
On some birds looks really nice.
On some washes them out , But I am grateful for this improvement in the Win 7 looks with ETO
Think I have settled on a water color for now tired everything from Light Blue to almost Black.
Thanks for this wonderful improvement Master Ankor..

[AnKor]

I will work to make the shine and reflections more appropriate. Though I'm still unsure what is the difference between XP and W7 in this regard.
Right now one of the missing features is support for _s and _r maps. WOFF doesn't use them and thus I haven't programmed them for my dll. However, I'm going to implement then and hopefully put to better use than was possible in original CFS3.

As for water, I will likely do some changes in my shader for the next release. I also want to get rid of panoramic map incompatibilities - some screenshots here clearly display the water becoming black in the distance because of incorrect environment texture.

I can't tell the date for next update, I have made a lot of research for new features, but before implementing them I have to rework some parts of the existing code - after months of rash development it became such a mess that adding more features is getting too complicated.

[rocketred]

all i know is on win8

for cfs3-plus added firepower ... plus eto , plus maw


i got all working and is excellent


maw , no issue following the install and copied over form other install


water ...........wow weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeee



thanks to hobbit, major , on technical issues .... and of course the master creator ankor

[rocketred]

649064916492

[gecko]

I will work to make the shine and reflections more appropriate. Though I'm still unsure what is the difference between XP and W7 in this regard.
Right now one of the missing features is support for _s and _r maps. WOFF doesn't use them and thus I haven't programmed them for my dll. However, I'm going to implement then and hopefully put to better use than was possible in original CFS3.

Been thinking about this and dug up another thread for you: http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforums/showthread.php?73928-SOLVED!-Specular-Textures-in-Windows-7

The pictures are gone but the descriptions may be helpful, and I may still have the pics if you like. To get any specular effects you have to make an edit to the shaders xml which I described in my tutorial. This seems to still use the _s.dds texture, but the base line for the lowest specular values on the texture (black) gets taken from 0 (no shine) to something at least as high as full white on a texture would have given with a stock shaders xml in XP. The specular values in the m3d files seem to be some sort of scaler for the effect, but of course have to be changed individually. So if there was a way to reset whatever the baseline is back to a level where black on a specular texture gives no shine on an unedited stock model, it would fix the issues on the vast majority of the models. A handful would still not shine because the modeler did not give any specular shine at all to any material. Another way would be to get the game to use the specular textures and effects with a stock shaders xml. You are probably way ahead of me here, but I though I'd put it out there just in case.

[ndicki]

Er... Forgive me if I'm being thick or something, but from time to time in MAW, and so far all the time in RS, the sea turns out to look like dry land... I'm using only the WOFF shaders30 package, and none of the other bits such as SweetFX or ENB. Any ideas what's gone wrong? Bit beyond me, all this...

Here I am, out at sea. Not very naval. The second one is in the same place, on another flight, and indicates that I have a conflict between my own land texture files and the stock ones, but that shouldn't turn the sea into land!

[MajorMagee]

It only makes sense if BaseOpacity is set to zero. (post 159)

[ndicki]

It's set to 0.95, straight out of the box...

[gecko]

Are you using the stock MAW shaders.xml and water textures? If you're using a different one it may cause issues. What's your location? Some parts of MAW around Turkey have dry oceans I've found. It could also be a config issue, check the two sliders at the bottom of z order section which have to do with water and see if a different setting helps.

[ndicki]

I thought of shaders - as far as I know, they're as issued, but they equally may very well not be. I'll take a look. In any case, I'm nowhere near Turkey - in MAW, I had this off the Libyan coast and around Malta. In RS, Hawaii.

The Z bias sliders are set to the values used in the "enabling high resolution textures" tutorial from GC.

<ZBiasBitsResolution val="22"/>
<ZBiasTerrainDecal val="0"/>
<ZBiasWaterPolyNear val="1"/>
<ZBiasWaterPolyFar val="0"/>
<ZBiasWaterLineNear val="1"/>
<ZBiasWaterLineFar val="0"/>
<ZBiasFlatEffects val="25"/>
<ZBiasShadow val="0"/>
<ZBiasTerrainAlphaNear val="0"/>
<ZBiasTerrainAlphaFar val="0"/>
<ZBiasObject val="0"/>
<ZBiasObjectFar val="0"/>
<ZBiasEffects val="1"/>
<ZBiasClouds val="1"/>


Later:

I changed the ZBiasBitsResolution val to 15 (as set automatically by the config tool) and that solved it in MAW. In RS, I continued to have the same problem despite changing the Z bias resolution until I copied the shaders from MAW over, but rather stupidly, I let it overwrite, so we don't have the guilty file!

Interesting that both mods should cause the same problem.

[Capt. Winters]

Hi All,

Hi Nigel, if you right click on your RS folder and go to properties, there is a tab called previous versions, that will let you opne the folder and retrieve the shader file. just copy it to your desktop.

regards Rob.

[ndicki]

Cheers, Rob - I vaguely remember fiddling with this, ages ago, using a set of shaders I got off Andy(?) - so not the original RS ones anyway.

I did the 'previous versions' bit, and it's gone. Never mind...

[gosd]

I thought of shaders - as far as I know, they're as issued, but they equally may very well not be. I'll take a look. In any case, I'm nowhere near Turkey - in MAW, I had this off the Libyan coast and around Malta. In RS, Hawaii.

The Z bias sliders are set to the values used in the "enabling high resolution textures" tutorial from GC.

<ZBiasBitsResolution val="22"/>
<ZBiasTerrainDecal val="0"/>
<ZBiasWaterPolyNear val="1"/>
<ZBiasWaterPolyFar val="0"/>
<ZBiasWaterLineNear val="1"/>
<ZBiasWaterLineFar val="0"/>
<ZBiasFlatEffects val="25"/>
<ZBiasShadow val="0"/>
<ZBiasTerrainAlphaNear val="0"/>
<ZBiasTerrainAlphaFar val="0"/>
<ZBiasObject val="0"/>
<ZBiasObjectFar val="0"/>
<ZBiasEffects val="1"/>
<ZBiasClouds val="1"/>


Later:

I changed the ZBiasBitsResolution val to 15 (as set automatically by the config tool) and that solved it in MAW. In RS, I continued to have the same problem despite changing the Z bias resolution until I copied the shaders from MAW over, but rather stupidly, I let it overwrite, so we don't have the guilty file!

Interesting that both mods should cause the same problem.

I also used this approch in ETO and it works fine on my machine.
not so well in BoB nor MAW.
Any suggestion of different setups are welcomed.

[MajorMagee]

Interesting variety of water colors and textures out there in the real world.

http://www.mu-43.com/showthread.php?t=50260&page=15

[mongoose]

The seas re so different depending on location,depth and weather in particular. I don't remember ever seeing blue sea in the UK area or most northern Europe. Flying frequently across the Atlantic (and having been in ships across it 1/2 dozen times), blue is not a colour I would associate with the (North) Atlantic. Clouds make a big difference as well. Slate grey, dark green/blue, even greeny/browny/bluey (!!) might be more like it.

[gecko]

I've got a project underway to address this issue now. When complete, different bodies of water will have their own distinct color. Doing a lot of research to try to get it right.

[Pat Pattle]

I've got a project underway to address this issue now. When complete, different bodies of water will have their own distinct color. Doing a lot of research to try to get it right.

Wow, I like the sound of that Daniel! :)

[hairyspin]

A western UK harbour this afternoon:-

http://imageshack.com/a/img197/4395/o1vf.jpg


Somewhat hard to define, especially since the greenish tinge has been reduced in conversion to jpeg!

[gecko]

Pictures like that are very helpful, the angle the photo was taken from prevents the base color of the water from being altered by reflections of the sky (the reason why water appears more blue in many photos than it really is) and the lighting is fairly neutral. Ankor's shaders take both of those things into account dynamically so the color the texture is actually painted must not include them or the final effect will be exaggerated.

I think I have a good base color for the channel (a rather nebulous darkish green-grey slightly greener than your photo) but places like the Thames estuary with the way currents cause the water to mix is proving a tough job to paint. Making progress though.

[MajorMagee]

Just a "what if" idea so far, but once AnKor get's through a major code clean-up there a possibility of providing the water with variable depth and transparency as well as regional color.

[lewis11777]

Ok I'm trying to figure out how Clive and the Major changed the water color to green vs the blue. Anyone know how that is done?

[gosd]

I have noticed that in a vanilla ETO depending the time of day you are flying the color of the water changes from dark green to murky blue.

[lewis11777]

In the CFS3 install with XP mine is blue no matter which time of day or where I'm at. I don't have the green that Clive and the Major have in their install. Would be great if we could keep the blue in the south pacific and the green in the north atlantic!

[gosd]

Try using the cfs3h2o.ddl file from Patt Pattle BoB in your fxtexture. Make shure you rename the original file just in case.

[gecko]

Yes, cfs3h2o.dds located in the effects/fxtextures folder controls the basic water color when using Ankor's shaders. Please note posts 87, 89, 99, 115, 155, and 156 of this thread.:mixed-smiley-010: You can swap out different versions or paint/recolor one to suit your taste for any location.

[gosd]

It would be nice if someone posted his good combination for most of the games ETO,MAM,DPC Korea,PTO Solomon ,RS,BoB,Battle for Europe.:encouragement:There are so many variations this could help in the research.:banghead:

[gecko]

MajorMagee attached the relevant files in post 99 and I am currently working on a set of water textures for the different theaters. This is going to take time as the water color will be varied by location within each map. Meaning that on the stock ETO map, if you were to fly from Corsica to London you would encounter the blue of the Mediterranean, the green of the North Atlantic and the brown of the Thames in a single flight without changing any files. Similar things can be done in all the expansions except DPC Korea as it does not have real water, so Ankor's water effects don't work there (self-shadowing still works though). This will take some time to fine tune colors and locations, so hang in there, I hope to make it worth the wait. Meanwhile, feel free to experiment.

[lewis11777]

Gecko that will be awesome, can't wait to see what you come up with!

[grover1]

Hi all,

I'm trying to set this up for my ETO 1.40 Hotfix install and it's not working.

I've installed as per MajorMagee's instructions on the first page, but when I go to load CFS3, the game crashes before I even get to the main menu.

I do have DirectX 11, if that's an issue and I've got Windows 7 64Bit operating system.

Thanks,

Chris

[gecko]

Did you try re-running the config program? Sometimes that fixes it.

[grover1]

Yes, again, no luck. I did find that the FlightFX folder wasn't created in my ETO Directory. Instead a SweetFX folder was created instead.

Any solutions?

[MajorMagee]

Yes, it should have installed a SweetFX floder. Is this file there?

7. Click on Enable Sweet FX and it will copy most of the needed files into your CFS3 install. It misses SweetFX_compatibility_settings.txt which is in the Flight FX / FX / SweetFX folder and needs to be manually copied into the matching one Flight FX created in your CFS3 directory.

[gecko]

Try removing sweetfx or flightfx and see if you can get Ankor's shaders working without them. They are not required if all you want is the new water and shadows.

[grover1]

I have no FlightFX folder created in my CFS3 directory. The only one that's there is the SweetFX folder.

Should I install FlightFX right to my CFS3 root installation?

[MajorMagee]

No. FlightFX goes in it's own directory, and should not be in CFS3.

[grover1]

So what folder is supposed to go into the CFS3 directory?

Is there supposed to be a FlightFX folder created alongside the SweetFX folder when you enable FlightFX?

[grover1]

Got it to work! Just took a bit of tweaking around. I've noticed that when flying at night, there is no cockpit lighting enabled if you press the light key.

I'm guessing I don't have something set up quite right, but anyone else have this issue?

Ankor, this is one of the best things to happen to CFS3 in a long time!

Chris

[AnKor]

Cockpit light doesn't work in this version.
You can switch my shaders on and off by pressing '0' (Insert) on numeric keypad. While they are off you won't get shadows and improved water, but the cockpit light will work :)

This bug will be fixed in the new version (along with some other improvements), but my progress there is much slower than I hoped.

[grover1]

No worries, Ankor! Take your time on this.

Your work is absolutely amazing!

[dewoitine]

Really, I don't understand !
I have windows XP and this in CFS3 :

7316

7317

Please help me !

[AnKor]

Really, I don't understand !
I have windows XP and this in CFS3 :
I see you have installed SweetFX, but not my mod. As I already told my mod has no relation to SweetFX, my mod just allows the latter to work with CFS3, but SweetFX is not required.

The latest version of my mod is here:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2918136/cfs/WOFF_D3D9_Extended.20140325.Beta.zip
Download it and extract to your CFS3 folder.
Then you will get "d3d8.dll", "d3d8.ini" (may appear as just "d3d8") and "shaders30" folder.
Note that files from my mod are called d3d8, not 9! That d3d9.dll is SweetFX.

After that it should work. However, I can't tell whether your SweetFX is correctly installed. I recommend testing my mod first and installing SweetFX only if everything else works good.

[dewoitine]

Sorry Ankor but CFS3 don't works with d3d8.

[AnKor]

Sorry Ankor but CFS3 don't works with d3d8.
Well, that's another question :)

Here is some steps to try:

1. Download and install the latest DirectX 9.0c.
From here (web installer, smaller download)
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=35
OR from here (full installer, large download)
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=8109

2. Run cfs3config.exe

3. Remove d3d9.dll to try my mod without SweetFX.

[dewoitine]

OR from here (full installer, large download)
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=8109

2. Run cfs3config.exe

3. Remove d3d9.dll to try my mod without SweetFX.[/QUOTE]

Thanks but nothing

7328

[AnKor]

Hmm... Files look correct.
What video card do you have?
The minimum required is AMD HD 4xxxx or NVidia 8xxxx series, both of them are from around 2008. Modern built-in Intel GPUs should also work.

Next versions will probably have better error reporting to help with such issues, but for now I'm not sure what else may be wrong.

[dewoitine]

OK Ankor, I see.
My video card :

ATI Radeon Graphics X2300

[gecko]

Here are a couple early shots of my water color project.
First, the Thames is now a muddy brown color:
7709

Second, adjacent bodies of water have a distinctly different color - here is a portion of the Thames Estuary contrasted with several nearby reservoirs which are not nearly so muddy looking.
7710

I'm referencing google earth and other sources for color, but I am open to suggestions if it doesn't look quite right (preferably accompanied by photos as simply saying it should be more grey/green/blue/brown/whatever is not particularly helpful in this case.) Also note that I will be adding varying degrees of color variation within bodies of water later on, the Thames Estuary being a good example where color can vary a lot with depth and how currents mix water etc as well as fading it into the channel's more blue/greenish color.

[HouseHobbit]

Master gecko,
I am very interested in this..
When you get this sorted, I would be grateful for the files needed for this.
Don't have the time or skill to sort all of this myself..
Thanks..Looks Great!!
:applause: :applause: :applause:

[gecko]

When it's done I will upload it. It's just one (very large) file, and you will need Ankor's mod installed for it to work correctly.

[mongoose]

I don't suppose there will ever be a way to get rid of the "shore waves" in rivers, although I seem to remember something about that earlier. (Been doing home remodeling too long; need to get back to important things like CFS3 work! :banghead: )

[gecko]

Nope, it won't do that unfortunately. I like the shore line in most places (though I wish it could be made wider) but it does look out of place in certain areas like central London.

[ndicki]

I don't suppose there will ever be a way to get rid of the "shore waves" in rivers, although I seem to remember something about that earlier. (Been doing home remodeling too long; need to get back to important things like CFS3 work! :banghead: )

No idea about that, but your spelling's gone to pot. :mixed-smiley-010:

[grover1]

Hi all,

I'm having a problem with the water effects with Ankor's mod.

I managed to get it to work once before, but for some reason, whenever I look at the water, I see a faint outline of the terrain in the water.

For example, I'll see the outline of a village out in the middle of the ocean.

Is there any fix for this? I've followed MajorMagee's steps to the letter and I'm not sure why I can't get it to work properly.

I do have the ETO New Environment 2.0 and Von Oben's 7-Season Scenery installed if that makes a difference.

Thanks,

Chris

[MajorMagee]

There's a parameter for water transparency.

In the Shaders30 folder
SeaWater.fx
BaseOpacity

If I remember correctly, higher numbers have less transparency.

[grover1]

Hi MajorMagee,

How do I go about changing these numbers?

So, if I understand you correctly, if I change these numbers to a higher value, will that make the water appear correctly and get rid of the appearance of a village in the middle of the ocean?

Thanks,

Chris

[MajorMagee]

Perhaps. The default settings should not allow you to see beneath the sea. They can be changed with any text editor, but I suspect you have some sort of file incompatibility going on with another add-on, that may thwart your efforts to fix this.

[liquidchicken]

G'day all..

I'm having the same issue as grover1..I tried changing the base opacity,but didn't have any luck..the clashing files is something I'll have to look at (so far I only have pto solomons on my current computer..)..I'm currently looking at the water files themselves eg: cfs3h2o and the h2od_1 etc dds' in regards to the alpha layers to see if I've balls'd up after so much chopping and changing over time..I'm currently running jbsceneryV2 and the stock cfs3h2o dds (does this have it's own alpha layer?)..I can see this mods potential,but it's definitely giving me some head scratching moments:banghead: ..any chance of a basic summary of what works (or doesn't..) best for the majority?..

Cheers!:biggrin-new:..jason

[gosd]

These lines are from shaders30 folder, what values need to be canged?
// Water background texture with slight transparency
Color.rgb = tex2D(Tex0, In.TexCoord0).rgb ;//* TFactor.rgb;
Color.a = BaseOpacity + fr;

[MajorMagee]

#define BaseOpacity 0.95

It's at the top of the Seawater.fx file.

[gecko]

Some exciting new screenshots have been posted over on the WOFF forum. Sounds like Ankor is getting closer to the next release of his shaders, should be really good!

[MajorMagee]

The variable ground shadows are beautiful, but they won't be in the next update.

9373

[AnKor]

Yes, they won't be in the next update. Besides they don't look as good in the stock CFS3 - the density of trees is much lower and the ground texture is so low res that shadows are visually lost in all those huge pixels. I know there are addons which improve the scenery, but I haven't tried them.

However, there is going to be another surprise regarding ground shadows ;)

Additionally, the next update will have some features specifically for CFS3:
- working cockpit light
- proper support for stock panoramic dds texture
- shaders will make use of specular map (*_s.dds) to improve the shine quality

[Pat Pattle]

That all sounds great Ankor! Thank you again for providing such a huge improvement to cfs3.

One question concerning your mouse-view mod - do you think that the other views could ever be improved too? CFS3 has an odd fish-eye lens quality which prevents decent close-ups and puts the background far away from the foreground.

Clive

[AnKor]

I've seen several mentions of this wide angle lens issue, but I never really noticed any inconveniences about it though.
Actually I've already tried experimenting with the FOV in external views, and while I can override it in my dll, there are some issues with labels, smoke effects and clouds - the game doesn't provide 3D world space coordinates for them, but instead draws them already projected in 2D screen space. It is a bit difficult to explain in simpler words, but basically it means that when I change the camera FOV all clouds and labels stay in the old places on screen as if the FOV was unchanged.
I think it might be possible to "unproject" them back into 3D world, and I hope to research this subject someday because I'd like to try adding cloud shadows and I will need 3D coordinates to do this.

Another option could be to disassemble the game exe, find where the FOV is stored and change it directly. I've made several approaches on this (for slightly different, but similar purpose), but without much success.

By the way, my mouse look tool doesn't make any changes in the game, it just interfaces with FaceTrackNoIR which in its turn interfaces with the game as if you were using TrackIR. No magic, just linking existing features together.

[hairyspin]

The fisheye view is a Flight Simulator legacy: FS9, FSX et al all do it.

[gecko]

Yes, they won't be in the next update. Besides they don't look as good in the stock CFS3 - the density of trees is much lower and the ground texture is so low res that shadows are visually lost in all those huge pixels. I know there are addons which improve the scenery, but I haven't tried them.

However, there is going to be another surprise regarding ground shadows ;)

Additionally, the next update will have some features specifically for CFS3:
- working cockpit light
- proper support for stock panoramic dds texture
- shaders will make use of specular map (*_s.dds) to improve the shine quality

The newer scenery is pretty good, not quite on the level of WOFF, but we'll certainly be able to appreciate all the shadows being cast on it. The next update also sounds mouth watering, very much looking forward to release!

[gecko]

Was just wondering, are the reflective *_r.dds textures also supported in conjunction with the panoramic dds?

[AnKor]

Yes, it is. I've spent some hours yesterday fine tuning reflections. And you can already try them :)
The new is available here: http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3881675/

The surprise I mentioned before is that standard ground shadows no longer have jagged edges. It makes a big difference.

As before the shine needs shaders.xml edit to work:
<ModelSpecularGloss Desc="Vertex lighting w/ Specular modulated by Gloss map"
Lighting="True" SpecularEnable="True"

Someday I will make an option in the ini file to let the shine work out of the box without any other edits.

[Daiwilletti]

The surprise I mentioned before is that standard ground shadows no longer have jagged edges. It makes a big difference.



Thank you! :ernaehrung004: That removes one of the last "daggy bits" of CFS3 :biggrin-new:

[Snaker]

Thanks for all you hard work on this!! I love the smooth shadows. Makes a big difference. However, I kept getting a weird line across the middle of my screen. It looked like a little strip of another part of the scenery going all the way across the screen. Also the roofs on the hangers were nearly transparent. I know everything is still beta so I went back to the March version and that worked fine.
Cheers!! :ernaehrung004:

[Pat Pattle]

The latest version is working great for me Ankor. I'm getting better fps in-cockpit and the sea looks better too. :)


Another option could be to disassemble the game exe,

Is that possible?? What wonders could be unlocked and problems fixed if so!

[grover1]

Hi all,

I recently downloaded Ankor's update and for some reason I'm getting some strange effects.

I've attached two screenshots showing what I mean.

The water looks just like the ground and there's a large horizontal line cutting the cockpit right in half.

Any ideas?

Chris

[Threedp]

I'm getting the same thing with the latest update.

[AnKor]

If you are getting a strip of land near the horizon visible through the cockpit you need to turn off (uncheck) the "Dual Pass Render" option in cfs3config overrides screen.

grover1, your screenshots are a bit too dark to say definitely but it also seems to be your case.
As for the water, if it disappears only with the latest version but works with the one from March 25th, then it is a new bug. But if it is missing in both versions the it has something to do with your settings.
At this moment I'm not sure what is the cause, but I'll surely try to figure out.



Is that possible?? What wonders could be unlocked and problems fixed if so!
With enough time and knowlegde anything is possible. People did wonders with some old and not so old games by reverse engineering small parts of game's code.
I spent quite a few hours digging through cfs3.exe and learned a bit about its graphics engine code, but unfortunately nothing really useful. While I know a thing or two about reverse engineering it is definitely not my strongest side.
So theoretically it is possible, but practically I can't do it.

[grover1]

Hi Ankor,

I'll change the settings for CFS3 so you can see how the water looks.

Thanks,

Chris

[Snaker]

I unchecked the Dual Pass Render and all is good now for me with the latest version. Thanks AnKor!!!

[HouseHobbit]

Just a bump along..

:bump:

[HouseHobbit]

Bumping along..
:bump:

[Snaker]

FYI- there is a new update released on August 30. It Will be interesting to see how the reflector sites work!

[AnKor]

So far reflector sights aren't moving when you move your head as they should. The only change is that they are properly lit now and will have the same brightness in day and night.
I'm still planning to make them fully working with realistic movement, but right now I'm too busy with other features.

To explain, although I've made a demo of working sight months ago (page 6 of this thread) there was a problem that different crafts were modeled differently. That demo worked for P51D, but didn't work for Spitfire. I figured out how to make it work for Spitfire, but then German crafts came along and required a completely different approach.
We discussed it with gecko back then and he proposed a good solution, but it will require some modifications for xdp files and some additional coding from me... So right now this feature is not available to avoid messing up gunsights on unsupported crafts.

[Pat Pattle]

So far reflector sights aren't moving when you move your head as they should.

It depends on how they're modelled. In the ETO/BoB mk1 Spits I placed the reticule behind the reflector glass so as you move the viewpoint the reticule appears to be floating. I think the MAW 109's may be done like this as well.

There's a great clip of a working mk1 sight here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Blem3FlkaMc