Generate water flow maps

[hishutup]

I have literally no idea how to go about this. The CK doesnt appear to have any sort of estimation tool included so my guess is that they used an external tool.

 

As far as I know, water flow maps are generated for each cell for every worldspace using this format

textures\water\<world>\flow.<x>.<y>.dds

Here is an example of riverwood's cell

 

and the one just north

 

 

It seems that the channels do different things as the texture is probably just an easy way to store data.

Alpha: Speed or Viscosity?

Red: Direction?

Green: Direction?

Blue: I don't think this is used, except in the noise.

 

I came about this because I wanted to extend water flows to falskaar and I was greeted with a very strange "bug".

Here is an example from a custom worldspace.

 

 

I have no idea how to go about generating this sort of thing and I know it will not be an easy task.

The only way in my grasp is to probably handpaint which is what SP suggested. This is possible for a handful of cells but definitely not all.

 

I really hope I am just being an idiot and missing something but I have no idea where to look for this information as water flows are relatively new.

[Guest]

Valve used Houdini for L4D and Portal 2. If you search 'flow maps valve' you can find a PDF with the processes they used. This seems like a job for an experienced graphics programmer with the right tools available to them - unless you want a lot of extra pain.

 

It would probably be easier exporting the LOD for the rivers in Falskarr and then making a custom mesh that matches the curvature like the streams do by default. I know you can't do that sort of thing either, but I'm just saying.

 

Your best bet would be to study and paint the R and G channels as as test in greyscale. The alpha definitely controls what you think it does, yes.

[hishutup]

As for that noise... yeah, its noise.

 

This seems like a much more reasonable tool. 

[TechAngel85]

This is outside my current realm of knowledge. Looks like that tool you linked would probably work.

[Guest]

This is outside my current realm of knowledge. Looks like that tool you linked would probably work.

Those two sentences don't relate to each other. :P Not that you couldn't learn how to do it obviously. Believe!

 

Now you only need to find each cell, export the terrain for reference, learn the program and have it finished before the trial ends. As I believed in Tech, I believe in you too. No joke.

 

Edit: To double clarify, this forum is full of smart people who learn new stuff all the time. I'm not being sarcastic.

Edited December 31, 2016 by Guest

[hishutup]

 

 

Now you only need to find each cell

Easy.

 

 

export the terrain for reference

Probably easy, just need to do some finagling. I can extract the vertex's and I can probably figure out how to export a simple obj format. Exporting the other objects are going to be interesting as there isnt a really good tool to easily access the necessary parts of the mesh. I could use the mesh itself but I think that is unnecessary, I rather just extract the simple collision or I can do it by hand. I mean, it would be cool the first 2 or 3 times but that will get old really fast.

 

 

learn the program

Now we're screwed.

 

 

have it finished before the trial ends

If its a good program that suits my needs, $25 is definitely in my price range. The 3 or 4 thousand dollar tool, yeah, f that.

I'd even be inclined on writing something.

[zilav]

Maybe this one? Requires hand painting though, also creating an image with water from a worldspace to use as an overlay there should not be too hard

https://teckartist.com/?page_id=107

[TechAngel85]

 

 

Those two sentences don't relate to each other. :P

Let's just say my mind was hazing when replying. Haha!

 

It's very possible Bethesda had their own tool for this, but cut it out of the current CK when prepping it for release. Hand painting for Skyrim should be okay since the terrain never really changes. It'll just take more time.

 

Good luck, hishy!

[hishutup]

Maybe this one? Requires hand painting though, also creating an image with water from a worldspace to use as an overlay there should not be too hard

https://teckartist.com/?page_id=107

I was looking at that, its possible to take a screenshot or whatever, scale it, then quickly swipe to get the desired result and last split the image up into the correct cells. However small objects like rocks would be very hard to make look correct, adding FX can probably help cover the defects its not perfect. Also tiling is an issue, which can be covered up but not really fixed.

[zilav]

Then get the heightmap, convert to mesh and use in that fluid simulator. Or maybe it can load heightmap images itself, idk.