[SUGGESTION] Different water graphic options

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
1

I toggled off “3D Water” for the first time in a very long time to see what 2D water looked like, and was immediately hit with a dose of nostalgia when I saw the deeper/darker blues of the water and more contrast for the depths…

“2D Water”:

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“3D Water,” on the other hand, always looks brighter and less contrasted:

NOTE: I know spec highlights contribute a little to that, but I’m talking more about the underlying colors.

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It may just be a personal thing, but something about the deep blue water in AoE2:Conquerors (and probably before) made things more immersive for me. Seeing fish jumping around in the visibly super deep waters helped it feel like an actual ocean with a deep abyss, where the fishing boats were going on a treacherous journey to reach them.

3D water, on the other hand, is often/always a brighter/paler shade of blue and never appears to get too incredibly deep. And the difference/contrast between shallow and deep water is minimal.

Would it be possible to bring back the deeper blues of AoE’s past into Definitive Edition’s 3D Water someday? And into its 2D Water, too?

  • Yes, in Googling AoE Conquerors, the blues appear to actually have been much deeper, richer blues than DE’s 2D Water even. I wish I had the option to go to that deep and rich of blue.

So, maybe we could have in Options some sliders for 3D & 2D Water color:

  • Water Brightness
  • Water Contrast
  • Water Shade (RGB) – (Or at least some flexibility. I’d understand if you don’t want us to make certain shades, like 100% Red.)
  • Water Saturation
  • Water Gamma
  • And maybe for 3D Water, an option to keep it animated but remove the sun’s bright spec highlights

Things like that… so we can customize water to our preference.

An in-menu real-time visual for this would be nice, so we don’t need to bounce back and forth between the menu and the game to see what each adjustment does.

Googled ‘Age of Kings’ and ‘Conqueror’s Expansion’ screenshots, for comparison. I love this rich, deep blue for water:

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7 Likes
2

Check the editor, terrain, water definitions. There are options there. I dunno if you can change them via a game setting though… You can mod the default one to one of those. WickedWitch looks good.

3

Thank you. But will that change the water for all 100+ maps provided to us for Skirmish matches? I can’t edit 100+ maps. I think it should just be options in the Graphics tab of Settings, or a new tab created there to put stuff like that in it. So we can change the water values to how we see fit. And come to think of it, enabling “3D Water” shouldn’t brighten the water nearly as much as it does.

I looked at water in map editor. This is as deep blue as I could make it. 2D Water looked kind of okay, but 3D definitely lost a lot of depth:

3D Water (view the explored areas)

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2D Water

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Not sure what WickedWitch is – I don’t see it anywhere?

4

WD

This stuff in the terrain tab. Wicked should be the 4th option.

edit: personally, I always liked this version. (edited version of Wicked Witches version.)

        {
            "water_type_name" : "WickedWitchSpoOky",
            "water_normals_def" : 
            [
                { 
                    "normalFileName" : "water\\waterSurface.dds",
                    "direction_min" : [1.00, 0],
                    "direction_max" : [0.01, 0],
                    "velocity_min": 0.01,
                    "velocity_max": 1.0,
                    "azimuth" : 30,
                    "scale" : 0.05
                }
            ],
            "water_types_def" : [
                {
                    "name" : "land", 
                    "reflectivity" : 0,
                    "height_mult" : 1,
                    "opacity" : 0
                },
                {
                    "name" : "walkable", 
                    "reflectivity" : 255,
                    "height_mult" : 255,
                    "opacity" : 128
                },
                {
                    "name" : "shallow",
                    "reflectivity" : 255,
                    "height_mult" : 255,
                    "opacity" : 128
                },
                {
                    "name" : "normal",
                    "reflectivity" : 255,
                    "height_mult" : 255,
                    "opacity" : 128
                },
                {
                    "name" : "deep",
                    "reflectivity" : 255,
                    "height_mult" : 255,
                    "opacity" : 128
                },
                {
                    "name" : "ocean",
                    "reflectivity" : 255,
                    "height_mult" : 255,
                    "opacity" : 128
                }
                {
                    "name" : "shoreless", 
                    "reflectivity" : 255,
                    "height_mult" : 255,
                    "opacity" : 128
                }
            ],
            "water_sky_texture" : "water\\skydome4.dds",
            "sea_floor_texture" : "water\\seaFloor.dds",
            "sun_direction" : [  0.75, -0.75, 0.75 ],
            "sun_color" : [  1.0, 0.75, 0.5 ],
            "sky_color" : [  0.0, 0.75, 1.0 ],
            "water_color" : [  0.0, 1.0, 1.0 ],
            "sea_floor_intensity" : 0.75,
            "sky_intensity" : 1.0,
            "sky_rotation" : 180.0,
            "sky_scale" : -0.5,
            "specular_intensity" : 1.0,
            "specular_power" : 3200.0,
            "map_scale" : 0.005,
            "sea_floor_scale" : 10.0,
            "wave_animation_speed" : 1.0,
            "wave_repeat_length" : 16.0,
            "wave_amplitude" : 0.02
        }

File: SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\AoE2DE\resources_common\terrain\water\water_json\water_def.json (Note that you should not edit this file directly of course. make a mod of it. Also, it’s best to leave in the other definitions. I just cut the others out for example sake.)

Edit: Here is what it looks like:

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1 Like
8

I too prefer the water from AoK, so I made a classic water mod:

Intended for use with 3D water and beach waves disabled.

I didn’t know about this, but these look identical to me. Perhaps they’re only different with 3D water turned on.

2 Likes
9

Yeah, you need to have 3d water on to see these differences. But yeah, I generally have 2d on myself but, I wanted to look into the 3d stuff again recently. It was from HD. Either option is fine of course. Choose your preference. :wink:

10

Even the coast looks darker than the water for 3D.

1 Like
11

Oh yeah, weird! That’s no good either. The water depth at the coastline is even deeper than the deepest abysses of the ocean :smiley: Don’t step into that water. Villagers fishing at the shore should be very careful!

After seeing 2D Water in DE compared to 3D, it looks too good for me to pass up. I’m sticking with it unless or until 3D Water can be fixed someday, and when hopefully some color/brightness controls are provided in settings menu like my OP describes

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Please be careful little fella! :smile: --^
The water is very deep where you stand

Ah, I see it now. I’m not sure how to choose different presets though… they all seem to do the same thing. They look the same in 2D and 3D to me. I tried single-clicking and double-clicking each. Same results

Just playing with the map editor, I thought this was pretty neat. Don’t think there’s enough control to have smoother falloffs though. Layering Mode option doesn’t have varying degrees of opacity:

2D:

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3D:

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1 Like
12

Can you release this as a mod with your version?

1 Like
13

Sure. I think I noticed a small issue though. I’ll probably fix it in an update later though… (The seafloor was not as visible as this while testing in a different way. I might lower it a bit.)

edit: I fixed the issue, added my own seafloor, and made it the ‘default’ by adding it to the top of the list. it should now always show up when 3d water is on. enjoy. :slight_smile:

14

I wonder if these mods created today were a result of this thread?

Either way, I’m still hoping official devs try to re-create AoE2-like water colors for DE’s random maps so mods aren’t necessary

I saw this Dark Water mod. Definitely not what I’m looking for, but the screenshot is interesting so thought I’d share here: