Rivers

[VALKYRIE 0]

Rivers have been #1 on allot of people's wish list since OFP first hit our PC's, although WRP Edit gave us the ability to create rivers on our islands they fall victim to engine constraints such as only being able to placed a sea level and being affected by the tide, this is ovcorse because the rivers we have now are little more than thin strips of sea water, this looks ok on large rivers like on Nogova but the smaller they get the worse they look such as sharp edges and a very obvious tide.

The idea I had was not to make them out of sea water like now but to create models similar to roads with different sections, long striates, curves etc.. They would have to be textured in a way that makes it look like flowing water like the surface of the sea is done, transparent perhaps with the river bed visible. They could be placed at any hight and with a little thought into the surrounding landscape and vegetation they could be made to look really good. depending on how many models are made we could have smaller streams start up in the hills and grow into larger rivers as they get closer to the sea.

Ovcorse the issue of clipping is the major problem in regards to there being a river bed and the ability to "sink" onto the water, can you change the solidity of certain parts of an islands surface? or create sharp "V,s" in the landscape for the models to sit in I have other ideas but this post is turning into a novel Its just an thought perhaps someone here can think of a better work around, maybe its impossible.

thanks. Valkyrie

[Messiah 2]

if you don't create a roadway on the water surface, then the player, tank whatever will sink through it

V's in landscapes are possible - this type of addon would be most useful for island that are premade to use the rivers

its a very possible idea - and one i think has been done to an extent - some1 made a lake addon like this

[redface 1]

to my knowledge the (good-looking!) lake addon has never been released. The author was status from acr-mod, but the site has disappeared. Or have I missed something?

EDIT: site has moved, but I don't know czech, check :http://mujweb.cz/www/statusczech/

in fact, http://www.acr-mod.com released an addons pack on the czech ofp.info-forums, is the lake included in there?

the question is: can one give a unit convincing "floating physics" when not in standard ofp water?

[WhoCares 0]

About tidal effects, you might try to put the island on north or south pole. Tidal effects should be low up there. However, you might face other effects by this, e.g. arctic nights...

[Messiah 2]

i didnt think it had been released.... just saw some pics a while back - looked good, and deffinatly a doable addon - and with drop partciles you could make waterfalls etc

[VALKYRIE 0]

Thanks for the info Messiah Sadly my skills in modding are limited I thought someone else with the skill to carry it out might like the idea.

Yes the "V" in the landscape would have to be a ready made feature and now I think about it would limit the shape of the river somewhat.

make them similar to roads however and you could send smaller boats down them the AI should follow the river as they would in a car on a road

[VALKYRIE 0]

Yeah water falls would be great you could have a top and bottom river section textured accordingly and a water fall model that sits in between on a cliff side.

[cbfasi 4]

I actaully did some trials doing what would look like streams.

I in essence created roads with a 'stream' based texture and assinged the roadway a texture which I had declared to have a 'water' sound.

It looked great and could be laid just like roads in visitor.

Problems.....

AI thought was a road

Was flat, no 'sinking' feeling

Was a road visually on map view

It had to be done as a road class to allow it to follow the contours the same way roads do, and if laid right would appear to flow down hill.

Other than that it looked good (due to first and last items not used as it would look odd AI using the stream rather than a dirt track to drive trucks on, and also not obvious on map)

The later feature could be solved if anyone knows how to alter map based icons (NOT mission editor based icons, they work fine)

[Dwarden 1125]

Maybe support river "road" class in ECP to define it as river, see it in map as river and unit will sink when enter it (defined river surface as obj u can go thru (e.g. as foliage is) then defined real surface drop under it ... but this will apply only if island's surface is made with that river basin (trunk) in mind ...

but what about made them as some trenches addons are done?

anyway this will be lot of work and need qualite scripting ...

[suma 8]

Quote[/b] ]It had to be done as a road class to allow it to follow the contours the same way roads do, and if laid right would appear to flow down hill.

This is not exactly true. You should be able use Oxygen "On surface" Vertex property to achieve the contour following, and this way you should not get most side effects you are seeing now.

If you will not set "class" "road" property, you might even be able to place them in Visitor just like roads, but it still will not be considered as roads both in the map an by AI.

[cbfasi 4]

Thanks Suma...

I jsut went back and looked at what I had, decded to remove the shadow (lodnoshadow=1) and it fixed one of the problems I had, it also now longer appears like a road and can indeed be laid like a road in visitor..

I will be hoping to get some pictures up in the near future.

They may only be streams (we talking 1-2foot width) but the visual affect is whats more important, especially if sound can be associated with them.

[SILESIAN 0]

Rivers like road ........ why not

[VALKYRIE 0]

Thanks for all the feedback, now I know its possible I'm gonna grab a copy of Oxygen and give it a shot but I wouldn't expect any results soon as this is pretty new to me.

Also is it possible to make the whole island a model? or would it lag to much and how would it affect the games physics.

If it could be done we could pretty much do what we liked in terms of rivers, waterfalls, sunken roads, roads cut into cliff sides and tunnels the list go's on and on, although it would have to be quite small in size or it would take forever to complete. Just another thought or a load of bull whatever may be the case

[ag_smith 0]

Impossible. Geo LODS (collision detection) are limited to about 64x64 meters size. Not to mention AI would be totally screwed up...