A Comparison of Water Mods

[Kelmych]

Pure Waters has two optional HD texture files. Did you try these to see if they provide any noticeable improvements?

[TechAngel85]

Pure Waters has two optional HD texture files. Did you try these to see if they provide any noticeable improvements?

 

I covered that above, but I'll take some comparisons of them as well and post.

[z929669]

Wow, this is a big job, so I am glad that someone is doing it

[TechAngel85]

RL is keeping busy this week (40+ hrs at work). But I should have time to grab some captures and test a little more tomorrow and this weekend. I've been wanting to do this for months so I'm gun-ho about it! :D

[eberkain]

On water alone, I could never make a choice, maybe leaning more to Pure Waters. But when you consider the other stuff like wet rock and less splashing then WATER is my fav choice.

[TechAngel85]

The weekend is upon us so I'll be doing some more stuff here that I mentioned above. I'll also take a look to see if the WATER optionals conflict (I could personally care less about the optionals myself. :p ).

[TechAngel85]

Nice evaluation, Tech!

 

I think that both PW and Water are definite improvements over vanilla, particularly with regard to water-land transitions.

 

I have to say though that PW is slightly more interesting and realistic to me in all cases, particularly the ocean. Snow-melt water in mountainous regions is very crisp and clear, and there is very little silt. Cloudiness should be more apparent in the lowlands and flatter regions (waters in The Rift are a good example).

 

How about some underwater and water-air transitions of each?

 

What about performance diffs?

 

Making my list of things to do with the compares this weekend. What exactly do you mean by "water-air transitions"?

 

EDIT:

A quick compare of the two mods shows that the optionals included in WATER do not conflict with Pure Waters. Therefore, you can use "Reduced Splash", "Extra Wet Rocks", "Tough Water - Animated", "Plants", and "Ice" with Pure Waters if you desire those effects. The first three are meshes, to which PW uses no meshes. The last two have textures but none conflict with PW.

[z929669]

Nice evaluation, Tech!

 

I think that both PW and Water are definite improvements over vanilla, particularly with regard to water-land transitions.

 

I have to say though that PW is slightly more interesting and realistic to me in all cases, particularly the ocean. Snow-melt water in mountainous regions is very crisp and clear, and there is very little silt. Cloudiness should be more apparent in the lowlands and flatter regions (waters in The Rift are a good example).

 

How about some underwater and water-air transitions of each?

 

What about performance diffs?

Making my list of things to do with the compares this weekend. What exactly do you mean by "water-air transitions"?

 

EDIT:

A quick compare of the two mods shows that the optionals included in WATER do not conflict with Pure Waters. Therefore, you can use "Reduced Splash", "Extra Wet Rocks", "Tough Water - Animated", "Plants", and "Ice" with Pure Waters if you desire those effects. The first three are meshes, to which PW uses no meshes. The last two have textures but none conflict with PW.

 

I mean that when you are swimming, there is a water threshold that appears on the screen as you bob in and out of the water. This can look weird.

[eberkain]

Alot of games that have swimming either lock the camera below or above the surface, so the surface plane never intersects the camera. I don't know if that feature is even possible in skyrim, or if there is a mod out the that does that already.

[TechAngel85]

Unfortunately, I think that is going to look back regardless of which mod is install.

[TechAngel85]

Okay, here is the performance data. I tested in six different location with six different water scenarios.

 

Mod / Average FPS

 

Vanilla /  38, 28, 39, 37, 37, 34

 

WATER / 37, 27, 35, 34, 36, 32

 

Pure W / 36, 27, 35, 34, 35, 31

 

As you can see there is a 1-4 FPS drop with either mod. The lowest score above is at Riverwood Mill. The others are at various locations from the first compare video.

[WilliamImm]

I'm seriously convinced that using Pure Waters with the WATER optionals would be the best choice for STEP, judging by techangel85's comparisions. Maybe nominate for next release?

[TechAngel85]

They wanted more compares so I'm going to give them some. I will hopefully have the video up tomorrow but no promises. The real question is... How important are the WATER optionals in STEP?

 

"Reduced Splash" reduces the splash from your character and other objects hitting the water and isn't important unless the vanilla splash is unrealistic (I've never noticed it, but will try to test it). "Extra Wet Rocks" makes the wet rock textures in-game more look more wet (again...I've never noticed but I think I usually skipped this one on my installs). "Troughs - Animated" gives a very small animated wave movement to the troughs (I've stared a several troughs and have never seen this "movement" but I'll try to find one for compares). "Plants" isn't needed at all because Vurt already includes these. "Ice" isn't needed either as it only adds two normal maps from That's Ice (STEP is using Real Ice which has its own normal maps).

[Omolong]

If we do remove WATER and go for Pure Waters, would it be worth looking at Waves and Blacksmithforge water fix as replacements for the Dragonborn waves optional and the Troughs optional respectively?

[TechAngel85]

Pure Waters already covers Dragonborn with an optional download. I'm going to look into the Troughs though. In all likelihood, the troughs animation isn't going to be a big deal, but I'll do the compares to be thorough.