Near Distance and Far Distance from Fog/Lightning Layers

[Elfe]

Does anyone know what “Near Distance” and “Far Distance” do from the Sector Paint Tool from Fog/Lightning layers in “Depth fog”?

Attachment: fake fog.png

[system]

Well, I can’t give a definition, but in layman’s terms, and from what I’ve gathered:

Far distance - Near distance = The distance from the camera at which point the sheet of fog will begin to extent relative to the camera.

For example, make a thick 0.99 Density fog and then put far distance to 100. Then put near distance to 95. You see that 5 meters from the pointer the thick sheet stands. Now, start decreasing the near distance to 90, 80, 70, 60, 50 and see how it pushes the fog back. Of course, if it’s too far away it won’t be visible on the screen anymore, but I think that’s the way to put some fog on distant vistas. (Haven’t tried that yet, sorry, but I will!)

[Elfe]

Thanks for the explanation

I thought about something with the difference, too but I thought it might have to do with height…which was not the case:D

[Elfe]

Ok next question:

What does “Ground Ambient Color” change in the Fog/Lightning layer options?

Sky changes the light and the reflexion in water but ground? I can hardly see any effect when changing that…

[SolemnXII]

Simply put, Ambient Ground Color will tint static objects such as walls to mimic light reflection from the ground.

[Elfe]

Thanks

Finally I’m through this layer now…god damn it nothing in this editor held me in breath for a whole day except these two nasty options

[system]

An interesting bug is that View Distance layer stacks.

-Choose a layer from the list, e.g. fog/lighting.
-Then choose View Distance.
-Then go back to another layer, e.g. fog/lighting again.
-Go back to View Distance. He!

Another thing that I can’t figure out is how to put a nice height fog on water. The fog wants to measure relative to the surface of the ground, but water may very well be 50 meters above, and the fog doesn’t want to rise above the water in any case.

[SolemnXII]

Another thing that I can’t figure out is how to put a nice height fog on water. The fog wants to measure relative to the surface of the ground, but water may very well be 50 meters above, and the fog doesn’t want to rise above the water in any case.

Can’t you just use a new fog layer relatively set to your current water height? The fog layers won’t blend but they will at least transition as the player steps into the area.

If you are trying to do multi-levels of fog, I would look into using a large particle effect. Or, retexturing one of the flat surface meshes to use as a gradient plane also does the trick…but that usually involves replacing the mesh’s shader.

[system]

Can’t you just use a new fog layer relatively set to your current water height? The fog layers won’t blend but they will at least transition as the player steps into the area.

If you are trying to do multi-levels of fog, I would look into using a large particle effect. Or, retexturing one of the flat surface meshes to use as a gradient plane also does the trick…but that usually involves replacing the mesh’s shader.

In this level, the seabed is at ~1 meter. The water is at 19.25 meters. The screenshot’s fog is 19-21 height. Even with extreme settings like 40-60 or 59-60, the fog never rises above the water.

That’s a great idea about patches of fog, thank you! I’ll try to modify the watersplash.dbr and see what I can come up with. That about the flat surface meshes I didn’t get though. Do you mean modify a ground texture so that instead of sprouting weeds at 90-100 opacity it sprouts fog? Sounds hard.

[Elfe]

In this level, the seabed is at ~1 meter. The water is at 19.25 meters. The screenshot’s fog is 19-21 height. Even with extreme settings like 40-60 or 59-60, the fog never rises above the water.

That’s a great idea about patches of fog, thank you! I’ll try to modify the watersplash.dbr and see what I can come up with. That about the flat surface meshes I didn’t get though. Do you mean modify a ground texture so that instead of sprouting weeds at 90-100 opacity it sprouts fog? Sounds hard.

Actually what he means is that you should try creating a pfx effect using the PSEditor ;).

Did you try Height fog?

Height Fog

Height Fog is used to create fog that has a certain height which allows creating mountains that have their peek above the fog.

• Top Height is the height at which the fog will get transparent
• Bottom Height is the height at which the fog will have it’s hightest density
• Density is the density with which the fog appears.

Try setting the bottom height to 1 m above your water and top height a bit above bottom height

[SolemnXII]

Do you mean modify a ground texture so that instead of sprouting weeds at 90-100 opacity it sprouts fog? Sounds hard.

hehe, that’s very creative on your part!

For an example: there is a couple flat surface meshes in: ui/mainmenu
such as: skysun_flare01.dbr (If you open that in the editor you will really see what I mean.)
But you are right, it is a complex solution\method by retexturing and altering how it renders.

[SolemnXII]

This is kind of what I meant, but you would obviously use a texture that blends to full transparency on the edges. This technique is used for lots of stuff…fake fog, shadows, lighting…ect.

[system]

This is kind of what I meant, but you would obviously use a texture that blends to full transparency on the edges. This technique is used for lots of stuff…fake fog, shadows, lighting…ect.

Ahh, like a “sun ray”! Neat, I’ll check it out.

Elfe, that’s exactly what I’ve done. If you look at the picture in the spoiler, especially the upper right corner, you’ll see that the fog “rolls down the edge”, below the water, when in the center it barely covers the ground which is obviously above the water. Maybe all those very abrupt height changes affect the whole thing? I’ve had no prolems creating a nice height fog on relatively flat surfaces, having some little hills pop out above the fog, but in this case it doesn’t work.

I’ll try to raise the seabed a bit and see what happens.