Optional Vanilla Water Shader

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PoodleSandwich
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Joined: 05 Nov 2018, 23:22

Re: Optional Vanilla Water Shader

Post by PoodleSandwich »

I'd just like to chime in by saying that because OpenMW brought me back to playing Morrowind after a very long time, I had forgotten about the old water shader. I looked at the shader-less water, assumed that was how Vanilla always looked and thought "man, I can't believe I used to think this was so pretty!"

I like the OpenMW water shader, I prefer it to the MGXE ones even it's a bit too clear, but when I started coming across screenshots of the Vanilla shader online I thought "wow, that's gorgeous, what's that!?".

Eventually I realized what it was and fired up the Vanilla engine again, my first thought was "woah this water is moving way too fast!" it's like it's being blown by a harsh wind all the time, which makes the game feel, well... cold. The way it forms waves around your character is really cool though.
Also, the harshness of the edges where it meets the land is kinda ugly (not that I like that feather-fade look where you can stand at the edge and stare right down to the bottom that some shaders have).

So to answer drummyfish, I think yes, having options to turn on various improvements such as:

- Speed of ripples being dependent on location, weather, season etc
- Lapping at the shore, not polygoning at it
- Reflecting actors, objects and all the other things the OpenMW shader can currently do like being glitch-free
- Various degrees of murkiness for different locations ( as mentioned here viewtopic.php?f=8&t=4105&start=10 )

to the vanilla water shader (in the same way you can currently for the OpenMW one) would be ideal.
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AnyOldName3
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Joined: 26 Nov 2015, 03:25

Re: Optional Vanilla Water Shader

Post by AnyOldName3 »

I can't remember if I mentioned this the last time this thread was active, but my personal preference would be to add the vanilla water shader's nice features to ours rather than make a third water option. I can remember that the vanilla one had dynamic simulated normal mapping, which is something that can be added to our shader as easily as it can be added to a new shader, but other than that, did it do anything we don't do better?
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PoodleSandwich
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Re: Optional Vanilla Water Shader

Post by PoodleSandwich »

I think when it comes to something like the look of the water, it's quite subjective and what constitutes better is going to change from person to person.

I think the most pragmatic solution is just to aim for 100% Vanilla water or "Classic Water", maybe with "New Water" as an optional alternative if desired?

I personally would love to also see the optional "improvements" I mentioned above added to the Vanilla water shader, but I understand that might be something best left to modders.

Just wondering how that would work btw, if it would require a modder to make changes to the engine post 1.0 (unlike the MGXE water shaders?), would it be a case of, somebody adds their changes to the water shader in their copy of the engine and then sends it over to you guys who merge it in?

Thanks!
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psi29a
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Re: Optional Vanilla Water Shader

Post by psi29a »

We can always improve the water shader, but it should always be over-writable (overridden) through a mod... to the taste of the player.
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AnyOldName3
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Re: Optional Vanilla Water Shader

Post by AnyOldName3 »

Right now, we have a GLSL file that a user can edit or replace, and that's likely to remain the case forever. Stuff like simulated ripples via a dynamic normal map are likely to require engine changes, but once they're there, there'll be settings that can be tuned and any replacement shader will be able to use them.
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PoodleSandwich
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Re: Optional Vanilla Water Shader

Post by PoodleSandwich »

Ah cool! So even if the water in un-modded OpenMW doesn't look like VanillaMW, someone can, and probably will, create a mod that fixes that, and they (or anyone else) can further modify that water shader to improve things like the speed of the ripples and the hardness of the edges? That's good to know :D
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Ravenwing
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Re: Optional Vanilla Water Shader

Post by Ravenwing »

I am very much in support of this option. No reason to spend time making multiple versions of something people are going to overwrite anyway.
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PoodleSandwich
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Joined: 05 Nov 2018, 23:22

Re: Optional Vanilla Water Shader

Post by PoodleSandwich »

Would be nice to have a baseline for 1.0 that looks and acts 100% Vanilla (-glitchiness) and that would also give people a nice starting point for further improvements to the shader IMO but I understand why there are other priorities for the team. : )
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AnyOldName3
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Re: Optional Vanilla Water Shader

Post by AnyOldName3 »

(No one who's actually investigated this has actually answered whether this is the case when I asked but) I think the only thing the vanilla water shader had that ours doesn't was the dynamic normal mapping. Adding that to our shader should make a better shader than any of the options right now, and that's less work than recreating the partially-amazing-but-otherwise-mediocre vanilla water.
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lysol
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Re: Optional Vanilla Water Shader

Post by lysol »

Also I should mention that most people do not even like the vanilla shader, except for the ripple effects. There have been like a couple of requests to ship the vanilla shader with 1.0, but still, most people actually enjoy scrawls water shader a lot more.

So personally, while I understand that you are a few who like the vanilla shader, I think there are a lot more important stuff to put development time on than recreating a bad water shader that only a couple of users actually even want. Again, except for the dynamic normal mapped ripple effect.
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