Water Reflections Settleing for REX4

[noddy]

Firstly what a great little tool, nice to get the DX10 effect work almost perfectly.

I use REX4 textures for water etc. and wonder how to improve these as at present they are not looking pretty, I have the DX10 enabled for the Sun, water and wave effects in REX 4. What would the ideal values be in the fixer tool?

Many thanks,
Andy

[Paul J]

I use REX4 textures for water etc. and wonder how to improve these as at present they are not looking pretty, I have the DX10 enabled for the Sun, water and wave effects in REX 4. What would the ideal values be in the fixer tool?
Andy

Hi Andy; Welcome!

Y'know, Andy - this has to be the most subjective topic in FSX - not even just DX10. Personally - I use ActiveSky "Frequency (https://www.dropbox.com/sh/gphlg87ofksmnsl/Qpk-xVljHy)" (04), having tried almost all of the REX textures.... It used to be REX "Sparkling" with DX9, but none of the textures seem to work well in DX10. I use REX clouds, for sure.

Maybe someone else can chip in with some better answer!

All the best,

pj

[_ben]

As another REX4 and DX10FIXER user, tips and guidelines would be great.

[noddy]

PJ,

Thank you for the response, is the AS payware?

If so something to look at for sure.

Andy

[Paul J]

PJ,

Thank you for the response, is the AS payware?

If so something to look at for sure.

Andy

Yes: payware, Andy.. Weather is an expensive royal pain, with each of them supplying a piece of the pie. ActiveSky 2012 (http://www.hifitechinc.com/products/active-sky-2012) (U$41.16) is the latest texture provider, and includes a very good weather engine: ActiveSky Next (http://www.hifitechinc.com/products/activeskynext) (U$49.99) is a fully rebuilt weather engine, and is comparable to FS Global Real Weather (http://www.fly2pilots.com/cms/Ui/Pages/Products/MainPage.aspx?id=253b8b5c-0a91-4935-8d01-b3c70aee6034) (U$55.43) and OpusFSX Live Weather (http://www.opussoftware.co.uk/opusfsi.htm), (U$44.95) but none of which have textures.

All three weather engines have very good reviews across the board: Opus's engine enables the weather to interact with the aircraft, somewhat like EZCA, and many folks like this. FSGRW has a very simple and friendly interface. I use FSGRW and AS Next, with REX clouds and AS water (https://www.dropbox.com/sh/gphlg87ofksmnsl/Qpk-xVljHy).

Hope this helps: :encouragement:

Regards,

pj

[noddy]

Sorry for the dumb question, but how do you use both AS and Rex?

[noddy]

Right I see you can just select the water options, so guess that is the answer doh.

[Paul J]

Right I see you can just select the water options, . :encouragement: NP!

...and you can also change the colours/shades of water too, making them duller and darker.

pj

[noddy]

:encouragement: NP!

...and you can also change the colours/shades of water too, making them duller and darker.

pj

One step at a time :biggrin-new:

[RockStarofRust]

Firstly what a great little tool, nice to get the DX10 effect work almost perfectly.

I use REX4 textures for water etc. and wonder how to improve these as at present they are not looking pretty, I have the DX10 enabled for the Sun, water and wave effects in REX 4. What would the ideal values be in the fixer tool?

Many thanks,
Andy

Hello Andy! I'm always a day late and a dollar short and I hope I don't muck things up. Compared to all these FSX GURU Einstein-like geniuses like Paul J, SteveFSX, Roger and many others, I would be Forest Gump. The following is what I've learned so far about my REX4 water and DX10, and I hope it helps...but first;

Mr Johnson I've been following yours and Steve's Guruism for quite some time now, and all though you don't know me, as I was getting up the nerve to post a DX10 success story

when the SHTF! I wanted to say;

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!!!

Sorry Andy!
With REX 4 - Texture Direct you have wave animation-global water-wave patterns.Stevefsx suggests that you pick your global water without wave patterns as the wind driven white caps
look off. So pick the colors you like, the coral etc. Install of course. I couldn't find a Wave Animation in REX4 I liked to compliment the white caps, plus up close they looked too pixelated IMO.
I went here http://www.strikingsoftware.com/downloads.shtml scrolled down to the bottom and downloaded SHD Wave Animation for DX10.Simple copy/paste plus backup originals! These are 4096 textures but work well @ 2048.
I tried FSWClite DX10 shaders but had better results adjusting reflections using Steve's DX10 fixer. I then installed Gizmo's wave animation. (Don't have ActiveSky yet)
Then I opened Steve's fixer to water shader and adjusted the, what I call, color/reflection factors...

Fresnel Min (default is 0.375) in the pictures below min=0.575

Fresnel Max (default is 0.588) in the pictures below max=0.788

By reducing the min/max by a factor of 0.1 from default you get closer to base color (darker) and less reflection.

Steve says:"The two fresnel factors define the amount of sky colour when looking straight down (min) and looking along (max)."

I will mention here that with the FSWClite DX10 shaders that I discarded, at any altitude above 1000 ft or so,the repeating water pattern is very prominent at midday...YUCK!

Tested each texture/color/animation at dusk, dawn, midday and night! Another factor to consider is what are you looking at monitor wise? Big screen, little screen, average screen or multiple screens.

Another huge factor is negative LOD bias found in Paul Johnson's DX10 How To! Adjust this in Nvidia Inspector assuming your GPU is Nvidia!

I like a little water shimmer/glimmer so I turn on LOD control and adjust to the negative!

Now throw in some sweetfx...or...not!

You may not like my results but the point is with Steve's fixer, REX4, Activesky, sweetfx (I use 1.5), Paul's guidance, you have a tremendous amount of control and can change your FSX's look and feel at will with relative ease!

REX4 Global Water Used for the following! Medium-Clear Coral Pronounced

You might have to click on these pics to enlarge!

Without sweetfx.
7198

With
7199

[Adamski_NZ]

I must say I hate the way FSX (and DX10) handles water reflections - particularly when it comes to *sea* textures. You may get the odd glassy look on a mill pond in totally still conditions, but you simply do NOT get the sea refelecting anything - EVER. Clouds and land mass *shadows* yes, but not reflections.

I have my fresnel values squeezed way back to:

Fresnel Min : 0.19
Fresnel Max : 0.19

In FSX, I have water at High 2x. I use REX (Texture Direct):

Global Water: Medium Clear Coral Pronounced
Wave Animation: Subtle and Focused

Medium Clear Coral has no "burned in" wave patterns.

http://s20.postimg.org/eqee0yq4d/zk_jng_water_01_1280.jpg

http://s20.postimg.org/nwzusbtfh/trojan_wanaka_01_618_1280.jpg

Adam.

[Adamski_NZ]

All three weather engines have very good reviews across the board: Opus's engine enables the weather to interact with the aircraft, somewhat like EZCA, and many folks like this. FSGRW has a very simple and friendly interface. I use FSGRW and AS Next, with REX clouds and AS water (https://www.dropbox.com/sh/gphlg87ofksmnsl/Qpk-xVljHy).

Just to add to Paul's post: if you're careful, you can use any combination of texture add-ons. I used to use REX/OD for the water and still retain FEX (Flight Environment Extreme) for the clouds, as I thought REX's clouds looked wrong. REX improved its clouds slightly in REX Texture Direct, so I dumped FEX and now use only REX/TD.

Your choice of textures add-on may be influenced by its associated LIVE weather function. Active Sky was always good, IMHO, but REX's was simply appalling until Texture Direct.

I now use OPUS for live weather, which I think is many, many, times better than anything else out there for both accuracy of weather interpretation and turbulence effects. That it also has a fine camera system is an added bonus.

I don't use any other add-ons at all - no SweetFX, Shade, ENB, FSWater ... you name it.

Adam.

[sleightflight]

I am using the rex 4, dark pronounced coral and photo real animation, it looked stunning at dawn as the sun was coming up, just not so great low down.