Possible future projects for modders - wet looks

[RockinHarry]

Future task for modders (or BFC). "Wet looks" for vehicles, infantry and maybe objects in wet environmental conditions (rain, fog, mist...). The upper two pics is Aris original Stug IIIG late. The bottom one has the textures (with stock games muddy tag) slightly increased in color saturation, while the same time somewhat darkened and increased in contrast. Also added some crude normal maps with NVidia tools normal map creator. Difference is not huge, but most "weathering" is made only with consideration to dry environments and it doesn´t look that convincing in non dry conditions IMO.

[benpark]

Oh! I have an almost full set of [rain] tagged infantry for CMBN finished (in my "experiments" folder), I think. I did some graphic tests on the vehicles as well, but just initial stages.

I set this aside due to RT work, but maybe we can get a "rain" tag set going collectively? I'm going to be swamped with "official" work, but I'll kick in the infantry for a title or two.

[benpark]

And good idea on upping the saturation a bit. It's tough to make metal look "wet" in a realistic fashion, and you done gone did it.

[CMFDR]

Do you know something you can't tell Harry?

Does it mean that dynamic weather (winter) is coming? ie. rain starts later than at scen's start

[benpark]

Sorry, but no. It's just a side mod. No reveals here.

It would be great to have dynamic weather, no doubt.

[RockinHarry]

1 hour ago, benpark said:

Oh! I have an almost full set of [rain] tagged infantry for CMBN finished (in my "experiments" folder), I think. I did some graphic tests on the vehicles as well, but just initial stages.

I set this aside due to RT work, but maybe we can get a "rain" tag set going collectively? I'm going to be swamped with "official" work, but I'll kick in the infantry for a title or two.

I seem to remember you mentioned these mod works some time ago in the forum. Hopefully you´ll see some opportunities to release your edits anytime in the future.  I´d reused the "muddy" tag for convenience, but "rain" or something seems more appropiate (muddy ground, but no rain ect.) Also did some basic experiments with infantry and there could be numerous variations as well. Fully soaked uniforms, partly wet and muddy boots off course. Highly depends on individual gear which can give quite different results, when it comes to wet looks. I.E helmet cover or more waterproof clothes (US) vs. cheap materials (german) ect. Think there´s enough reference materials available in the net and with regard to color pics, the various WW2 reenactment groups pics would be of value, or could possibly help when beeing asked.

Quick take on Aris M4A3 Sherman 75W, as opposed to unedited M4A3 (to the right). From photos that can be found in the net, Shermans (and tanks generally) have more of  shiny effect and mud/dirt more or less washed from the turret and hull. There´s surely more possible variations, when it comes to wet looks.

[mjkerner]

Way back when I tried my hand at some Herman Goering Division inuform mods, I discovered the wet look accidentally by saturation and vibrancy, and tried it on the shoulders and arms, mainly. It was fairly easy to do, IIRC, but the problem was getting all the gear, weapons, and helmets to have a wet sheen. Couldn’t pull it off to look right, but did use the darkening technique for oil stains on tanker uniforms. Looking forward to seeing your stuff, Ben. I bet you nailed it!

[Falaise]

it's a good idea and a success the effect is believable
me it is the effect of the rain on the landscape that interests me and it's the season to do this kind of observation
it's been two weeks since I look at the wet road and the road with traces of wheels on the side of the road and especially the puddles
The difficulty of having a brilliant and transparent effect
there is mud on the road
something like that could be a starting point

Edited February 6, 2019 by Falaise

[Falaise]

exemple

Edited February 6, 2019 by Falaise

[benpark]

Yes, that's perfect.

One would imagine a mod like this would encompass pretty much...everything. Maybe stick to most common vehicles.

I'll dig around in a few days for the infantry stuff. It warn't nothing too fancy, but it got the job done.

 

[RockinHarry]

One can get really lost in all that detail works and if you adapt something, you find you need to adapt something else too and more and more... but I like it. Had already started making some hurtgen forest mod, yet it´ll remain WIP for some time to come I guess. As benpark says, best to stick with most common stuff, incl. terrain and then expand on it overtime. I got shattered trees finished and some ground terrain well suited for the wet autumn season so common in late 1944. With regard to infantry, it´s also not too laborous as it´s mostly adapting existing textures to look more dirty.

Btw, how much can we make use of the shader files (frag,vert) to increase overall wet effects in the game? I once figured adapting some movie shader parameters add to the overall effect (saturation, contrast ect.) If effects can be made with the shader parameters, one can possibly add these by key press (Alt-M) during game play when needed.

[Ithikial_AU]

I dabbled in some uniform editing around the time I did my take on 'Snowy Uniforms' for CMFB. Before tackling snow I tried first to create 'muddy' uniforms and the .psd file I created was turning out some great results IMO. I never tried rain/wet effects though have thought about it.

What killed the 'muddy' uniforms idea was that the modtag [muddy] is hardcoded into the game but appears to only work for vehicle textures/models. It had no effect on infantry. Given weather specific mods like these you want it to be applied across the board based on what weather/ground conditions existing scenario files rather than the game looking for a specific modtag. Players aren't going to go through and manually apply the modtag to every scenario themselves. So there is little you could do as an outside modder. It would probably be the same with 'wet' effects like this, reliant on a lot of manual mod tagging of existing scenarios.

If BFC hardcoded in 'Muddy' and 'Rain' / 'Wet' modtags into the games similar to what they did with snow then the modders could be set loose to provide textures and alphas safe in knowing their work will actually show up in the game at the appropiate time.