Weather Rhur and industrial haze/smog
Results 1 to 4 of 4

Thread: Weather Rhur and industrial haze/smog

  1. #1
    SOH-CM-2023 mongoose's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2005
    Location
    Navigator, where are we?
    Age
    79
    Posts
    3,536

    Weather Rhur and industrial haze/smog

    I wish I knew how was the main weather maker guy to make weather for more or less permanent haze over the Rhur area. I suppose I could do some work on that, but my real stumbling block would be the smokey dirty industrial related haze, rather than just plain white. So far I have not managed that. Anyone remember if there is an sdk or 'how to' on weather making.

    Cato said "Carthaginem esse delendam"
    I say "Carthago iam diu deleta,sed enim Bellum Alium adhuc aedificandum est"

  2. #2
    From my unpublished weather mod.


    These files are intended to be used with AnKor's 2017 shaders for CFS3 that correct for the gray band at the horizon. I've included an update to every weather.xml file I have. The BackgroundWeather fogcolor in each weather.xml file has been tuned to match the horizon color of the included skybox files. The high resolution skybox files provided are a combination of new textures and modifications of existing ones to smooth out the banding, and eliminate the corner seams as best I could.


    The default skyboxes and fog color tend to make the horizon too blue for anything but a zero humidity day. I've tried to mimic as closely as possible the atmospheric effects I see in the real world. The sky generaly goes from blue to bluish grey-white as you approach the horizon because of the water vapor in the air.


    The method used for the tuning of the fog color was to check the color at about the middle of the texture using PhotoShop, and then to turn down the brightness by 12% in the color checker. The Hexadecimal RGB values were then put in a calculator with FF added at the beginning, and converted to the decimal equivalent. This is the value that went into the fogcolor. A quick check in the game was then used to refine the brightness value up or done slightly in PhotoShop, and a new hex and decimal value was tried until the match was optimized for most conditions (see table below).


    If you are drawing new images each patch is drawn as Front, Left, Back, Right, Front to make the joins seamless.
    Front is displayed looking South
    Left is displayed looking West
    Back is displayed looking North
    Right is displayed looking East


    In the panoramic_cubic_test.dds file these should be placed in Back, Front, Top, Bottom, Left, Right sequence.
    (The default that came with cfs3 was not done correctly.) Some of AnKor's shaders use this file to create cloud reflections on the water, and I think it may be used for the UI background scene as well. You will notice mismatched seams at the edges of the sections if the sequence is not correct.


    There is a setting in the weather xml files called skyboxcloudType that can have a few different predefined descriptions:
    NoClouds (and ThinClouds) will display the clear_bk, _fr, _up, _dn, _lf, and _rt textures from the effects\skybox folder
    FewClouds will display the cirrusonly_bk _fr, _up, _dn, _lf, and _rt textures from the effects\skybox folder
    ScatteredClouds will display the scatteredclouds_bk, _fr, _up, _dn, _lf, and _rt textures from the effects\skybox folder
    BrokenClouds will display the lowcumulusonhorizon_bk, _fr, _up, _dn, _lf, and _rt textures from the effects\skybox folder
    ThickClouds will display the grayhorizon_bk _fr, _up, _dn, _lf, and _rt textures from the effects\skybox folder
    If you don't have it explicitly defined in the weather xml file it seems to default to the NoClouds version.


    Within the weather xml files there is a parameter called fogcolor that uses a 10 number sequence to define it's color. This is a decimal that converts to hexidecimal as FF followed by the Red, Green and Blue color values as numbers from 00 (darkest) to FF (lightest). A pure gray would have R = G = B. For example scatteredclouds4low.xml has the BackgroundWeather fogcolor as 4288789972 which converts to FF A1 BD D4 which is a light blue grey R=161, G = 189, B = 212. The choice of this shade will have a significant impact on how well the fog will blend into the skybox background colors. AnKors latest shaders address the grey band that frequently was seen along the horizon, but they cannot completely make up for poorly matched fog/skybox colors.


    For the skyboxes in this pack the optimal values are:
    NoClouds = 4288789972
    FewClouds = 4288789716
    ScatteredClouds = 4287013048
    BrokenClouds = 4290432475
    ThickClouds = 4285757562


    I've made a few other edits to some of weather xml files to eliminate the flickering line that forms when a cloud texture intersects the surface of the terrain. This was generally done only where it was quite noticable and was accomplished by raising the minimum altitude of individual cloud effect entries.


    The cloud texture dds files have also been checked and edited to eliminate any stray non-transparent corners or edges that may have snuck in the aplha layer.
    US Army, Major, Ret.

    Service To The Line,
    On The Line,
    On Time

    US Army Ordnance Corps.

  3. #3
    SOH-CM-2023 mongoose's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2005
    Location
    Navigator, where are we?
    Age
    79
    Posts
    3,536
    How come the weather mod never saw the light of day?

    My issue with the dds files is that I don't actually see anything on them; they appear blank on the checkered background (?alpha)

    Now my skill set can probably just about manage the 'weather' xml file work, but not any of the sub contents, including the dds and cloud xmls.

    Doing TOW Pt II and the BC Rhur campaign in early '43, haze was a a big issue, not that it wans't in most bog cities where coal was the main domestic energy source!

    Cato said "Carthaginem esse delendam"
    I say "Carthago iam diu deleta,sed enim Bellum Alium adhuc aedificandum est"

  4. #4
    It had too many elements with unknown provenance to get proper permission to publish.
    US Army, Major, Ret.

    Service To The Line,
    On The Line,
    On Time

    US Army Ordnance Corps.

Members who have read this thread: 0

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •