Terrtex Water Question

[Don6218]

Hello, I have a question about how the "Water" textures are obtained in TSRE5 and in Open Rails. When I go into TSRE5 and look around at some of the Water Textures, they look proper, a proper Blue with a Green Tint. When operating in Open Rails using version X1.3.1-33-g23177665, they appear to look more like the surrounding Terrain than the water. More Mottled Green/Brown like the surrounding "Land" rather than the Blue/Green I see in TSRE5. It appears my Fisherman is fishing in a field rather than on water.

Water seems to be something difficult to reproduce, is it? I see in the updated Surfliner the water textures are very good and semi-transparent in spots of still ponds.

How would I go about replacing (swapping out) the textures that are too Green/Brown? Or is that even possible? There seems to be a lot on Creating the Textures, and in Route Building, but I could not find anything about swapping out textures. Could it be a matter of Height of the Water? Or of the Land beneath it?

[NorthernWarrior]

I believe it's the watertop texture in the route's environment files you have to replace. There is a set in the file library here if you do a search, though I found them to be a bit of an acquired taste.

I have had a couple of go's at trying to create replacement water myself but I think it's a bit of a dark art and probably needs an alpha channel on the image to create a bit of transparency. Sadly I doubt OR (or MSTS) really capable of displaying the really quite realistic water in other sims or games. In particular it needs to be dynamic, is rarely a lovely shade of aqua blue and should reflect the surrounding terrain etc. too.

[scottb613]

Terrtex Water Question

Hi Folks,

I made - what I think - is a pretty decent looking water texture - I tailored it to what I commonly see in the northeast US - a dark grayish greenish texture with some nice highlights - I could share it if it’s something you may be interested in:



Regards,
Scott

[muskokaandtahoe]

That's very good art Scott, How about you put the file(s) into the library? I'll like to use that and I'll wager others will too.

[lineman]

Absolutely!

[NorthernWarrior]

I'll second (third?) that, please share Scott.

[scottb613]

Hi Folks,

LOL - ok - ok - I'll try and get it packed up when I get in this weekend - I'll include my "frozen" water too for those who want ice in the winter (obviously needs to be swapped via bat)... LOL - the subtle gold and green flecks in the bottom texture surprised me with how good they look when I put this together... It started out as a marble countertop texture I heavily modified - from an advertisement...

To answer in more detail the OP's questions...

All the textures and settings for the water are contained in the "ENVFILES" directory inside each respective route folder... There is a sub-directory of ENVFILES called "TEXTURES" that has the water textures... Typically they are layered textures stacked on top of each other as specified in the "*.env" file - again - typically - the top layer texture has an alpha channel to make it translucent...

In addition - when you want to swap environment files (includes water) you need to specify the names of the environment files used "*.env" (ENVFILES dir) used in the "[route name].trk" file residing in the root directory of the route...

Regards,
Scott

[FSSARNO]

Scott,
I like your picture and I'm interested in the water and the Bridge.

My E-Mail is ...arnoechtermeyer78@gmail.com

I agree with Dave Nelson you put all files in the library!

Thank you have a nice Day!

Arno

[Don6218]

Wow, that is good looking water for sure Scott.

What I was asking about was the rendering between looking at the water in TSRE5, which in my case is a Greyish/Blue, but in the Sim in Open Rails it is the color/texture of the surrounding land forms. I will provide pics as soon as I get a chance. View angle does not seem to make any difference.

[Don6218]

Water Question Pictures

Here are the "In-Game" shots of the water in my question.
Water view in Game 2.jpgWater view in Game Boat.jpg

In the first you can see how the "Water" is very Green, in the second is the Fisherman. Here is essentially the same view using TSRE5, you can see the Blue now.
Water view in TSRE5.jpg

Any ideas why the rendition is so different?

[GokuMK]

TSRE uses "/ENVFILES/editor.env" file but OR probably uses "/ENVFILES/sun.env" or other weather file.

[Don6218]

Water Question

Something went wrong with the other pics. Here they are:
Water view in Game Boat.jpgWater view in Game 2.jpg

Okay, Goku, I see what you are saying in that they view the textures differently. How can I correct this to make the water more Blue like in the TSRE5 shot?

Thank You