*** 5. Water Mods ***
CFS3 default water animation files are located in the effects\fxtextures folder and are named h2od_01.dds through h2od_16.dds
With AnKors shaders the color for these files is rendered using the cfs3h2o.dds file for the local water color information. The cfs3h2o.dds file is a vertically inverted rendering of the entire theater so each pixel's tint covers a fairly large area of sea surface shading. Edits to cfs3h2o.dds can create local effects like muddy river water exiting a delta into the sea, sandy shoals and coral reefs.
The BaseOpacity parameter controls how easily you can see through the water animation to the texture underneath. This can easily go wrong if the underlying textures don't look like a sea bed.
The reflectiveness of the clouds and sky on the surface is controlled by the ReflectLevel parameter. The sun sparkle on the surface is controlled by the SpecularPower and SpecilarNormDivisor parameters.
The AddFoam parameter in SeaWater.fx is used to determine the grey scale level that will be interpreted as foam. The animations files need to have their brightness level distribution adjusted to provide discrete areas for foam patches to appear and dissapear as the wave crest passes by. The boundry of the textures need to wrap the opposide edges to avoid having seams appear. A somewhat randomized pattern of foam patches helps hide repeating patterns as the sea surface is tiled with these textures. Using low numbers creates an interesting effet that will make the sea surface appear to be covered in sea ice, high numbers will remove all of the foam patterns.
An optional set of water animation files set up to display the sea foam are provided with this package, but you may use the game's originals if you prefer without any conflict other than the difference in wave pattern and foam appearance.
It turns out that the alpha channel in the effects\fxtextures\h20d_##.dds files has to be pretty finely textured, and the color variations have to be subtle (no harsh shade transitions) for it to bump map realistically.
The CFS3 Default Water Detail Texture Size is 5 and the SeaWater.fx settings in this package are preset to match. Using a different texture size will change the appearance of the wave dimensions unless you adjust the WaveBump and WaveScale values in SeaWater.fx to match.
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