New water
by Brian Ramage · in Torque Game Engine Advanced · 04/06/2005 (12:09 pm) · 53 replies
Hey guys, the new water is finally checked in. There's also a new demo directory terrain_water_demo. It contains a very minimal demo mission without a lot of the extra stuff that's in the main demo. Right now it's still running the current terrain, it will be updated with the new terrain when it's ready.
The water isn't in the docs yet, so let me point out a few things.
Most of the water parameters aren't updated in real time, so you'll have to restart the mission for them to take effect. The exceptions to this are the scale of the water, which is how you change its size, and the "gridsize" parameter which indicates the number of meters between verts in the water grid.
The 2.0 pixel shader for the water is a monster, so if you have a Geforce FX5200 or other low end 2.0 shader card, you might want to force it down to 1.1 shaders, or set the "fullReflect" flag to false.
There were a ton of other updates that went up with the water, so let us know if something got broken.
Enjoy!
The water isn't in the docs yet, so let me point out a few things.
Most of the water parameters aren't updated in real time, so you'll have to restart the mission for them to take effect. The exceptions to this are the scale of the water, which is how you change its size, and the "gridsize" parameter which indicates the number of meters between verts in the water grid.
The 2.0 pixel shader for the water is a monster, so if you have a Geforce FX5200 or other low end 2.0 shader card, you might want to force it down to 1.1 shaders, or set the "fullReflect" flag to false.
There were a ton of other updates that went up with the water, so let us know if something got broken.
Enjoy!
#2
04/06/2005 (6:09 pm)
Question: Is there a way to make waves like in the current TGE water? - I would like to make an ocean with waves coming up onto the shore. I've been playing with this and it is really beautiful and realistic :)
#3
Thanks for the tip on the lower end cards too. I have a geForceFX 5500. Using the release version of TSE, I was getting 9-FPS when looking at the water. After going into client prefs.cs and forcing it to use version 1.1, I'm now getting 60-FPS looking at the water; and it still looks really good. I like it.
I had never thought of forcing the version before. I'll have to check my other missions now and see how they run.
In case anyone needs to know how to set that parameter:
client\prefs.cs
$pref::Video::forcedPixVersion = 1.1;
$pref::Video::forcePixVersion = 1;
Worked like a charm for me.
04/06/2005 (6:47 pm)
Looks really nice Brian. Thanks.Thanks for the tip on the lower end cards too. I have a geForceFX 5500. Using the release version of TSE, I was getting 9-FPS when looking at the water. After going into client prefs.cs and forcing it to use version 1.1, I'm now getting 60-FPS looking at the water; and it still looks really good. I like it.
I had never thought of forcing the version before. I'll have to check my other missions now and see how they run.
In case anyone needs to know how to set that parameter:
client\prefs.cs
$pref::Video::forcedPixVersion = 1.1;
$pref::Video::forcePixVersion = 1;
Worked like a charm for me.
#4
04/06/2005 (7:09 pm)
Wow i'll have to give it a look thx Brian. Exciting that TSE is one more bigger step closer to production version.
#5
04/06/2005 (7:29 pm)
Yellow lines indicate the water's bounding box. Perfectly normal to see them. 
#6
04/06/2005 (7:54 pm)
Is this one only through CVS? or is this in the download installer?
#7
04/06/2005 (9:08 pm)
TSE is available through CVS. TGE has installers. 
#8
04/06/2005 (9:35 pm)
So where can I get the Water Demo? Or is it not ready yet.
#10
Simply log in into cvs/tse and download tha HEAD.
You'll then get the new source plus a dir like terrain_water_demo. Compile and start tse with the parameters
tse -game terrain_water_demo
You'll then see a very minimalist mission with that awesome water...
04/07/2005 (3:52 am)
@StephenSimply log in into cvs/tse and download tha HEAD.
You'll then get the new source plus a dir like terrain_water_demo. Compile and start tse with the parameters
tse -game terrain_water_demo
You'll then see a very minimalist mission with that awesome water...
#12
04/07/2005 (1:28 pm)
Great job Brian! I'll look to merging in the latest TSE HEAD with our modified TSE over the weekend. 
#13
I'm new to all this and I'm looking forward to checking out the awesome water!
Thanks.
04/07/2005 (11:08 pm)
Sorry if this is a stupid question, but how do you start tse with the parameters you specified above? I compiled the latest head, but I don't know where to type them.I'm new to all this and I'm looking forward to checking out the awesome water!
Thanks.
#14
04/08/2005 (1:18 am)
The water is truly awesome. Never saw anything like that on a computer beeing rendered real-time. Fantastic job! 
#15
04/08/2005 (1:45 am)
I totally agree with Martin the water looks very awesome
#16
TSE.exe -game terrain_water_demo. Close the properties, double click the short-cut and there you go.
04/08/2005 (4:25 am)
@Kerry: create a short-cut for your TSE.exe, right-click the short-cut, select properties, then edit the field with the path and TSE.exe, so it reads
#17
04/08/2005 (10:45 am)
@Stefan: Thank you very much for the info. I followed your directions and got it working. The water is amazing!
#18
04/08/2005 (11:59 am)
Water is in, shaders is in, but waves is't in... No waves on bounds. Look like static poly whis shaders. :(
#19
04/08/2005 (12:45 pm)
Waves was my question too....I think/hope they're coming...I am grateful to have this much ready though! :)
#20
There's so much that can be done with water, I could have spent another year working on shore effects, proper LOD falloff, realistic wave properties, surface turbulence, foam particles, etc. Instead I chose the general case, "you can slap this water anywhere and it'll run and look pretty good" route.
It would be cool if someone picked up where I left off though and made a really nice water pack!
04/08/2005 (1:06 pm)
Due to time constraints on getting the water done, I chose a brute force grid approach towards the water geometry rather than go with the LOD approach of the TGE water. I was hoping to still be able to use the crude grid to render waves using a vertex shader, and indeed I had some geometry wave tests running for a while. It didn't scale up however; the vertex shader was too long for the massive amount of vertices required to make them look wavy across a large distance. I was going to keep the geometry wave shader around for rendering inside interiors or for other small water blocks, but I ran out of time to fully support it. I could post the geometry shader code somewhere, (maybe here?) if you guys are interested.There's so much that can be done with water, I could have spent another year working on shore effects, proper LOD falloff, realistic wave properties, surface turbulence, foam particles, etc. Instead I chose the general case, "you can slap this water anywhere and it'll run and look pretty good" route.
It would be cool if someone picked up where I left off though and made a really nice water pack!
Torque 3D Owner Jacob
Here is a little something that didn't look right - in case you haven't noticed it...the yellow lines appear when the water block is selected in the editor:
Image