Friday Facts #323 - Animated water

[Reika]

I am so happy to see that this has finally been implemented! The static-ness of water and a few other world objects has been one of my longest-standing complaints, purely because of how unnatural and fake it looked.

[LostInTheForums]

While we're at water... What about water wells inland?

[conn11]

Small deposits of water can spawn, according to your map presets. They are somewhat of inland water wells. Colloquially refferd to as lakes.
Whats more appealing, now then beautification is on the table, to maybe implement the greenish water texture from the 2016 and 2014 trailer. Water flooring under a certain size and in fitting biomes (meaning beeing dominatly surrounded by certain terrain) could display it.

Reffering to this (In the unlikely case anyone is NOT familiar):
https://youtu.be/DR01YdFtWFI?t=54

Great changes by the way, I'm getting more and more excited about 0.18

[eradicator]

Reffering to this (In the unlikely case anyone is NOT familiar):
https://youtu.be/DR01YdFtWFI?t=54

Watching that old trailer again now gives a pretty astonishing impression of how much the graphics have changed, and how "flat" it all looked back then. The art department (and the engine department ;)) have done a truely outstanding move job.

Green water does technically exist btw, it's just not naturally generated i think.

[conn11]

Reffering to this (In the unlikely case anyone is NOT familiar):
https://youtu.be/DR01YdFtWFI?t=54

Watching that old trailer again now gives a pretty astonishing impression of how much the graphics have changed, and how "flat" it all looked back then. The art department (and the engine department ) have done a truely outstanding move job.

Green water does technically exist btw, it's just not naturally generated i think.

don't forget to check out the two previous iterations. Those are more like cave painting in comparison to the current game.
Just saying a much more contemporary HD-trailer, featuring such "small" things like atillery or nuclear is seriously needed.

Like shallow water outside the NPE-Campain I think, both great opportunities to diversify terrain in freeplay.

[fishycat]

Wow, amazing work guys! It looks pretty darn good. Will there be some subtle typical shore sound, like wind blowing and waves hit the shore, maybe even some occassionally seagull?

[Impatient]

Guys plz dont forget to add sound effects for the water as well. and wind at the shore and on the sea.

I spend so much time in factorio, I have the need for the illusion of fresh air and vaccation.

[Ringkeeper]

good thing first animation didn't made it in the game that one looks horrible.

But the rest is fine. Won't see it much later... my wife doesn't like water in the game, too much building disruption for her

[Quarnozian]

Hmmm......
Imagines reservoirs of Oil that have leaked up to the surface, rivers of Lava winding through the terrain, and churning pools of Acid nearby.

Awesome!!. And, and... since we are talking environment how about dust storms in the desert, or dust devils...

.... rain (wake up your inner pluviophile)

Edit: Also, the water looks amzing

Adding bubbling swamps to this list.
Plus rippling fields of tall grass.
Oh, also shimmering crystal formations that react to the clouds.

Sorry devs, you've sparked our imaginations, so now you get to deal with a bunch of unrealistic requests.

[Engimage]

This looks absolutely stunning. Well done guys!

[Dysan27]

While we're at water... What about water wells inland?

I believe that it was a conscious choice not to have them buildable in vanilla. They are a thing though. If you build an offshore pump and then landfill the water it is on, it still works as a pump, and actually changes its name to "Water Well Pump" Just don't remove it as you can't place it back

It is one of the things they decided was a constraint that adds to the game play.

I'm sure there is a mod that allows you to place them directly.

[QGamer]

I love the animated water!
And it doesn't distract the player--amazing!
One question: is the water safe to drink?

[5thHorseman]

This is the coolest thing I'll immediately disable since clouds

[burninghey]

As the last few posters mentioned, it looks like the waves should be caused by the wind. We currently have clouds that move by, and the smoke from our machines (especially noticeable on turbines) changes direction slowly with the wind too. It would be great if there was a single unified wind direction (and maybe even speed) for all of those - clouds, smoke, waves, and trees, etc - to all move together. That would really give a sense of a coherent living environment.

Then of course you’d need a dynamic weather model to have the wind shift in a realistic pattern...

And if we’re going *really* crazy, you could even have the diffusion of the pollution cloud affected by the wind direction / speed.

Ok actually the *most* over the top thing would be to have the pollution cloud affect the weather itself!

+1

[darkthemes]

If you're looking for a super-efficient animation technique, you could consider colour cycling.

This one's a bit of an intro: The Lost Art of Color Cycling (Youtube)
This one is by far one of my favourite talks about early animation techniques: A GDC talk by Mark Ferrari, an expert artist who employed color cycling for beautiful effects like mist, water, fire, smoke, and even time of day (Youtube)

[BattleFluffy]

So watery! :D

This looks really nice. Another unexpected bonus thing that "we didn't know we needed". :>

The thing I am looking forward to most of all is the update to the sound effects, though. I am always in hope of news about that.. :D The preview of the artillery shown many FFF's ago was soooo cool.

[Ghoulish]

I do enjoy the FFF's where you give us a sneak peak in to how things work under the hood.

On first look I thought the new water effect too subtle, but the more I watch the more I started to think it fits, a good compromise between overhead and looks. Looking forward to seeing the new animation at scale in my factory.

[Ext3h]

Shadows on the water ...

I don't think I ever realized they are there, but now that the water is moving, they pop out. And they are neither subject to a blur, nor are they distorted by a noise function. Can't really paint them on top of the water like that. They can suppress highlights on the water, but the can't project a core shadow onto water.

Also about the reflections, the filter for "high" objects appears to be wrong. Width of the blur kernel should have scaled up if distance between water surface and object is high. The hard shape for e.g. the treetop is pretty obviously wrong, and makes it look like a second drop-shadow, rather than a reflection.

[Lubricus]

Shadows on the water ...

I don't think I ever realized they are there, but now that the water is moving, they pop out. And they are neither subject to a blur, nor are they distorted by a noise function. Can't really paint them on top of the water like that. They can suppress highlights on the water, but the can't project a core shadow onto water.

Also about the reflections, the filter for "high" objects appears to be wrong. Width of the blur kernel should have scaled up if distance between water surface and object is high. The hard shape for e.g. the treetop is pretty obviously wrong, and makes it look like a second drop-shadow, rather than a reflection.

Yea it's a 2D game, so...

[Ext3h]

Yea it's a 2D game, so...

So? Filtering the sprite into outline is happening in 2D as well. Except the used filter kernel is a constant width one regardless of distance to sprite base, which is causing it to look weird. If the reflected part is far from the water, it should be reflected with a lower frequency, but in a larger radius. Equival to widening the filter kernel when baking the reflection map, producing wider gradients.

Composition of lightning is happening in 2D as well, but doesn't change that the composition works differently for water, than it does for e.g. terrain.
Water is pure specular, the primary source of illumination isn't diffuse by direct illumination (blocked by shadows), but rather reflection. Direct illumination only contributes highlights (twinkle, foam), not the more dominant reflected component. So final illumination is

Code: Select all

[direct illumination mask] * ([wave noise] + [shoreline] * [foam texture]) + (1 - [shoreline]) * [reflection mask] * [reflection noise] * [ambient]

rather than the shown

Code: Select all

[direct illumination mask] * ([wave noise] + [shoreline] * [foam texture] + [reflection mask] * [reflection noise] * [ambient])