Realistic Water Reflections

http://www.tvkon.com/images/gaming/0...v/00000001.jpg

Do you think we'll finally get them?

Yoshi did mention the water shaders arent finished but the lack of realistic reflections in water has been something i've been sorta sad about since i first played the game in beta.

something like this?

http://i.neoseeker.com/mgv/334988-Ra...e3_display.jpg

gw2 has simple the best water i've seen in an mmo.. even if the screen i found doesn't give much justice to it..
well if i have time ill do a better screenshot ;)

Yoshi P. has stated many time that they're still working on water, and at same time he said before that the game will features the most beutiful graphics in an mmo... So i hope yes.

Maybe when/if they add swimming.

@Dragonheart: Here you go. :D http://i.minus.com/iZCt0NnXH5iX.png

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Originally Posted by Dragonheart

something like this?

http://i.neoseeker.com/mgv/334988-Ra...e3_display.jpg

gw2 has simple the best water i've seen in an mmo.. even if the screen i found doesn't give much justice to it..
well if i have time ill do a better screenshot ;)

Yoshi P. has stated many time that they're still working on water, and at same time he said before that the game will features the most beutiful graphics in an mmo... So i hope yes.

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the water alone in that screen really brings the picture to life, why i really want something like that in ffxiv, i picked Aion as an example of a game much older than ffxiv to show the realistic capabilities of ffxiv implementing it

I really do hope they do it right it.

The water in Gridania flowing in the wrong dirrection was kinda deceiving.

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Originally Posted by Lirion

Maybe when/if they add swimming.

@Dragonheart: Here you go. :D http://i.minus.com/iZCt0NnXH5iX.png

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Thanks Lirion, nice example!

http://i.minus.com/iZCt0NnXH5iX.png

posted as pics, it deserve best visibility! arenanet have done a wonderful work with waters in the game..
Not only it looks beutiful, but you can swim, and go underwater.. (and yes, even the underwater world looks beutiful and living.. ) .

We can only hope that SE will do the same treatment to water ;)

Yes swimming in GW2 really made me want it in FFXIV! I hope they can get it to work properly. :D Everytime I enter GW2 I have to take a swim. :P

Better water graphics would be awesome... as far as swimming goes I highly doubt it..

In GW2 they have 2 different sets of weapons, one for land and one for underwater. I also believe they have an entirely different set of abilities when they are swimming as with the monsters that can swim, they change their style of attack and abilities as well..

From what I gather they are focused on fixing the regular combat, doing something underwater from the start would be extremely difficult and highly unlikely

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Originally Posted by Angelas

Better water graphics would be awesome... as far as swimming goes I highly doubt it..

In GW2 they have 2 different sets of weapons, one for land and one for underwater. I also believe they have an entirely different set of abilities when they are swimming as with the monsters that can swim, they change their style of attack and abilities as well..

From what I gather they are focused on fixing the regular combat, doing something underwater from the start would be extremely difficult and highly unlikely

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exactly, gw2 underwater has a completly different gameplay.. different weapon, monster and skill ofcourse... but this is a bit ot, we're just talking about graphics ;)

Yoshi himself have talked about possible swimming.

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As for swimming, it would to be something that wasn’t just swimming. If we were going to put this in the game, we would want to make it a part of the game. For example, swimming to certain dungeons to do things, battles in water, etc. While this isn’t something we could put in for 2.0, it might be something we consider for the next expansion pack. We’d make sure that it would have something worthwhile.
We do have the swim suits, so they have to be good for something, right?

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http://pc.rpgsite.net/interviews/327...-naoki-yoshida

When they add swimimg if they dont revamp the water it will be a fairly dissapointing experience.

SE uses some fun techniques to create unique but yet low cpu/gpu costing water; however, their current water isnt going to cut it when you are swimming right in it. By the time they add swimming I think they will also have DX10/11 and so I hope they will take advantage of those features. Perhaps add some tessellation, including the water.

(the tessellation is what makes the objects stick out "literally" rather then adding shadows to a texture and making it appear to stick out, but not)
Crysis fun example :P
http://youtu.be/ShowM4P_lZ8

Obvious example:
http://youtu.be/XDlC6tAqc20

I love how so many suggestions are coming directly from GW2 all of a sudden lol.

Anyway... On topic... "realistic" reflective water is something that's been done by many games (MMO or otherwise) for a while now, and it doesn't "require" swimming to make it work or look good.

Right now, FFXIV is sorta "faking it" with something called cube-maps or reflection-maps, along with animated normal maps to simulate waves flowing across the surface. It's a total graphical short-cut, but usually does the job well enough, giving the sense of real reflections while maintaining better performance. Altana knows, FFXIV's current engine needs all the performance tweaks it can get lol.

Then you'll often see varying degrees of reflection detail in two different categories, one being reflection resolution (how sharp or blurry the reflections are) and the other being how much of the environment is reflected.. e.g. Sky Only; Sky and Scenery; Sky, Scenery and Characters, etc.

Some games present another option, such as reflection update frequency. EQ2 does this. You can have it update every frame (which is the most realistic, but slowest), or update every Nth frame so it's not as realistic, but with better performance, or "Once Only" which is exactly what it sounds like. It takes an initial "picture" of the environment, applies that as the environment/reflection map, and that's it. It looks really bad, though, because as you're running around, the reflection never updates in the water.

Point is, there's a number of ways SE can go with this, to varying levels of detail.
In all, though, they can implement all that well before, and even without swimming implemented. One does not require the other.

I agree, though, it would be nice to have more realistic water in the game. My favorite water so far is between Age of Conan and Lord of The Rings Online.

Accurate water reflections was one of the things I was most looking forward to in the ARR engine.

The environmental mapping technique in current water shaders is archaic by today's graphic standards, and ends up making the game seem last-gen.

I sincerely hope that the devs can give us realistic looking water when all is said and done (even if it is only available on high-end video cards).

Aside from lighting/shadows, water shaders may be the most direct way to impress upon your average viewer the sophistication and power of a new graphics engine.

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Originally Posted by Zantetsuken

Accurate water reflections was one of the things I was most looking forward to in the ARR engine.

The environmental mapping technique in current water shaders is archaic by today's graphic standards, and ends up making the game seem last-gen.

I sincerely hope that the devs can give us realistic looking water when all is said and done (even if it is only available on high-end video cards).

Aside from lighting/shadows, water shaders may be the most direct way to impress upon your average viewer the sophistication and power of a new graphics engine.

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When WoW updated its water engine it made a huge difference. I'm not a big fan of their graphic style but the water was pretty damn sexy and made screenshots that where bad look good.

@Preypacer: Age of Conan water was pretty cool :P

SE, tessellated reflected water plz!

Edit: want to mention that tessellation is very intensive so it wouldn't be good for everyone. You can make waves other ways that are less high end intensive, however you can also use tessellation to increase performance by reducing geometry (like far away items) rather then increasing.

I am sure they will add realtime reflections when they add DX11 support.

come on guys gameplay or graphics can't have both!

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Originally Posted by Preypacer

I love how so many suggestions are coming directly from GW2 all of a sudden lol.

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Know what I liked most? "Why do you do want realism in a video game?" Yet here we are wanting something to be realistic lol.

They had the right idea with 1.0's water, but like everything else, it wasn't fully realized.

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Originally Posted by Elexia

Know what I liked most? "Why do you do want realism in a video game?" Yet here we are wanting something to be realistic lol.

They had the right idea with 1.0's water, but like everything else, it wasn't fully realized.

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ya, it's funny people were bashing us, than come here and be like YA THAT WOULD BE AWESOME!@

I just want the water viscosity reduced so that it does not look like melted vaseline.

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Originally Posted by Rokien

come on guys gameplay or graphics can't have both!

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Actually we can.

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Originally Posted by Huginn

I just want the water viscosity reduced so that it does not look like melted vaseline.

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This isn't true for most water sources, it's only true for the ocean.

OP:
I hope that in future we'll can have something like that. The game is good now, but it could be better, I only fear that because of PS3 version they won't improve such a realism. :(

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Originally Posted by Enma

OP:
I hope that in future we'll can have something like that. The game is good now, but it could be better, I only fear that because of PS3 version they won't improve such a realism. :(

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Seriously, you guys want REALISTIC water but not REALISTIC animation/ arrows?

Man, here I thought having realistic things in a fantasy game was just my fantasy and everyone just wanted to disagree with me, but now I see, everyone wants REALISTIC things in their FANTASY game.

Graphics and game mechanics do not have to have the same depth of realism.

SE has always tried to have a high visual realism for a high fantasy style; however, they seldom pay attention to realistic mechanics.

I think more succinctly you could say they work hard for their visuals to be "in another dimension plausible" and that realm has its own mechanics that do not always refer back to ours.

Realistic water? Who's to say this isn't exactly how water is supposed to act, what with the world being magic and all? ;)

I think what most people want is "visually pleasing" water, not realistic water.

Because real water is rarely blue and clear...
http://www.colourbox.com/preview/189...ng-in-lake.jpg

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Originally Posted by Randelmire

I think what most people want is "visually pleasing" water, not realistic water.

Because real water is rarely blue and clear...
http://www.colourbox.com/preview/189...ng-in-lake.jpg

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That's because of pollution

Lake Tahoe says different>
http://www.xtri.com/data/Image/Secti.../LakeTahoe.jpg

the water in GW2 is... like everything very unrealistic to me. it looks like oil colours

but like the producers of GW2 said.. GW2 should look like a painting. and thats the way it is.. its a painting.. but neither realistic nor the best ive seen.

very old MMO water (Dark Age of Camelot:

http://www.axiomfiles.com/Files/231689/sshot016.jpg

The Elder Scrolls Online
http://static.iamgamer.de/fileadmin/...enshots-07.jpg

thats real water reflection... not that unrealistic oil water without any realistic reflection.

not that (GW2):
http://media.giantbomb.com/uploads/1...5873-gw436.jpg


GW2 is really not next-gen.. its very-last gen.. when it comes to the graphics engine
its a painting. nothing more.

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Originally Posted by Rokien

That's because of pollution

Lake Tahoe says different>
http://www.xtri.com/data/Image/Secti.../LakeTahoe.jpg

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I said RARELY CLEAN AND BLUE. It does imply that it is that way some times, but most of the time, it's not. Learn to read please.

Also, it is not pollution, most of the time, it's due to the kind of sand in the water.

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Originally Posted by Randelmire

I said RARELY CLEAN AND BLUE. It does imply that it is that way some times, but most of the time, it's not. Learn to read please.

Also, it is not pollution, most of the time, it's due to the kind of sand in the water.

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Thats when you make each environment have its own water type :P. General "this is water" no matter where you are, can make do but the best systems uses different attributes for each area (more then just color).

Seeing as swiming will not be out on realese of ARR I'm not so worried about it. But I really hope they dont plan on using the same water system once they are pumping out that water expansion.

Or that they programed themselves into another corner and cant change anything without a total redesign.

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Originally Posted by Rokien

Seriously, you guys want REALISTIC water but not REALISTIC animation/ arrows?

Man, here I thought having realistic things in a fantasy game was just my fantasy and everyone just wanted to disagree with me, but now I see, everyone wants REALISTIC things in their FANTASY game.

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What are you talking about? I can't understand your words.

Theyre probably too busy downgrading the graphics to implement that. Would be nice though.