Reflection on the water surface from underneath

[Interkosmos]

Hello, guys! I recently downloaded OpenMW, and I found that behavior of reflection on the water surface is strange if I'm looking from underneath. It reflects the ground below me, like this. Is it supposed to be that way? If so, how do I make it behave more like the vanilla?

Thanks.

[Capostrophic]

Is it supposed to be that way?

Yes, it's intentional and reflects how Snell's law works in real life. It might not be the best practice for actual gameplay, though.

[Dyskos]

Is it supposed to be that way?

Yes, it's intentional and reflects how Snell's law works in real life. It might not be the best practice for actual gameplay, though.

From the video, it seems that neither method gives much in the way of information regarding external visual stimuli when underwater. Is there any reason a natural effect wouldn't be the best practice for gameplay, when the vanilla option doesn't offer any improvement?

The only thing I'd like to see is visual improvement for the phenomenon. As it stands, it looks too... clean. But, that's just me being nit-picky.

[CMAugust]

I spent some time in the pool recently and observing Snell's Window. It's a really cool effect when you know what to look for. Objects above the water that should be well out of your visual range are clearly visible, if squashed by the fisheye effect.

It looks a bit strange in game at the moment as OpenMW doesn't simulate the fisheye effect, among other things. It is an open issue on the tracker however so there is always a chance this will be improved.
https://gitlab.com/OpenMW/openmw/issues/816

[wareya]

I don't think it should be a high priority to emulate the fisheye effect accurately. The engine would have to render a half-cubemap every single frame, and the shader for sampling it would be nasty.

It would be better to just change how snell's window is rendered so that it's less obtrusive. People playing a 16~17 year old game don't expect crazy effects like that anyways.