Realistic Water Two (by isoku)

[Smile44]

Discussion thread:

Realistic Water Two by isoku

Wiki Link

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Hi this has just appeared on the Nexus and looks like a real rival to any and all water mods.

 

Compatibility:

 

 

 

 

    All plugins must be placed after any mod that modifies a cell near a body of water. Therefore I recommend placing this mod VERY low in your mod list. Load order between the different addons (DLC, waves, etc.) don't matter.

    Realistic Needs and Diseases compatibility has been integrated. No patch is needed.

    Carried forward edits from the DLCs, bug fixes from the Unofficial Patches, mesh improvements from SMIM and the Skyrim Particle Patch. Let this mod overwrite everything.

    Let this mod overwrite everything from SkyFalls. Performance waterfall meshes are available if needed.

    Just let this mod overwrite everything--including other HD texture mods.

    Water surface and Dragonborn waves support for Dawnguard, Dragonborn, Wyrmstooth and Falskaar are provided.

 

 

 

Overview:

 

 

 

 

This is Realistic Water Textures revived and remade from scratch. New water surface textures were carefully crafted in an attempt to imitate the fluid motion of water. Lake, pond, river and ocean water are now visually and aurally distinct from each other. Various water effects have also been modified.

 

Water - Visual:

Rivers and creeks are the only bodies of water with an obvious flow direction. It was strange seeing lake, pond and ocean water flowing only in one direction and by definition lakes and ponds don't flow. Instead, they will appear to ripple and bob in place to emulate the vertical movement of real life, standing water.

 

Lake, pond, river and ocean water are a bit more blue. In a mountainous region like Skyrim, water should be fairly cold. Colder water limits the growth of freshwater algae and other plant particles, which tends to give water its greenish hue. Ocean and lake water are now bluest followed by river, pond then marsh water. Keep in mind this mod was balanced with vanilla lighting so other lighting mods will affect the color.

 

In addition, I've gone through almost every interior and exterior cell with water and made cell edits when appropriate to allow unique water types for the four major bodies of water in Skyrim: oceans, lakes, rivers and marshes/ponds. Without cell edits, lakes and ponds would share the same texture and settings as the ocean. I've also used cell edits to correct the flow of rivers if possible. Regardless, I had already attempted to craft river water in such a way that multiple flow directions could be interpreted depending on the angle of view.

 

Water - Audio:

Now that lake, pond and ocean water are separated, it's possible to give them unique, ambient sound effects. Ponds are silent. Lakes have gentle, gurgling, steady waves while the ocean is louder and composed of choppier water sound effects. To match the quality and volume of the new sounds, the river ambient sound effect was replaced as well. If RealisticWaterTwo - Waves.esp is installed, all waves from Dragonborn will now have a crashing water sound effect (unfortunately not perfectly synced). Finally, the volume of waterfalls and rapids has been increased.

 

Waves:

All wave plugins require Dragonborn installed. The waves from the Dragonborn DLC were slowed down and retextured. In particular, the splash and foam effects were made more visible. All done via mesh and texture edits.

 

The logic I mostly followed in placing them is simple: is there a large expanse of primarily open, deep water where wind-powered waves can build up before breaking towards the shore? If yes, then there will most likely be a large wave there. Looking at the waves already on Solstheim, it appears Bethesda followed the same logic. RealisticWaterTwo - Waves.esp is required for the wave sound effect to apply to all waves.

 

Waterfalls:

Large waterfalls have been sped up animation-wise, retextured and more splash particles have been added. Waterfall mists have more volume. All done via mesh and texture edits.

 

Boats:

Rowboats floating in the water are now animated and gently bob around. An optional file for longboats is provided but static objects such as crates and barrels will not move with the boat.

 

Other:

Foam effects have been retextured.

Rain ripples will no longer slide across the surface of the water. Rain and water drop ripples have been retextured and transparency has been increased.

Small "fake water" rapids and the foamy streams in Whiterun and Markarth have been sped up animation-wise.

"Shiny" rocks near bodies of water now look wetter.

 

 

 

🙂

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Warning! Dropbox video looks like crap in the player! Download it for best quality. YouTube is better but dropbox download is still best. I'd like to note that I used the same normal for the waters as I did in the previous video (high res calm) for WATER.

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/d5pou2r3gqbs84e/Water%20Mod%20Comp%20Update.mp4

 

Difference between regular and calm version of water normals:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[video=youtube]http-~~-//www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvyMCtr-oNw

 

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WIKI Link

[phazer11]

You didn't post a link.

[Neovalen]

Looks very good. Top of my check out list for tonight. :)

 

Link: https://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/41076/?

[Sairven]

I'm gonna be using this instead of W.A.T.E.R no matter what STEP decides. Personal reasons.

 

Plus, we all ready use almost 100% of isoku's 11 mods (that are on the Nexus). Call me a fanboy.

 

Also, IIRC wasn't isoku the original author of W.A.T.E.R (I think before it became W.A.T.E.R)?

[Smile44]

You didn't post a link.

 

Whoops! I feel so ashamed. I'll never be able to show my URL around here again. LOL

 

OP corrected.

 

:)

[phazer11]

Yeah this looks promising.

[Smile44]

I'm gonna be using this instead of W.A.T.E.R no matter what STEP decides. Personal reasons.

 

Plus, we all ready use almost 100% of isoku's 11 mods (that are on the Nexus). Call me a fanboy.

 

Also, IIRC wasn't isoku the original author of W.A.T.E.R (I think before it became W.A.T.E.R)?

Yes indeed he was - Sparrowprince picked up the batton and built W.A.T.E.R. from the ashes of RW1. The Prince has been credited in that some of his improvements to the original RW are used in this new version.

 

:)

[Aiyen]

Most certainly very interesting! Gonna test this out at once!

[TechAngel85]

Another project to add to my list.... Looks like I need to gear up my water mod comparison videos again. What should be included? WATER, Pure Waters, and Realistic Water Two?

[ath3nos]

I noticed that SparrowPrince posted on the mods page to not use it as it is a rip-off of PW. He also said he had problems after the install.

 

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk 2

[Aiyen]

Well this already won for me.

The 4k textures just make it better by that reasoning alone. Reflections are just better. While I do miss some of the smaller waves compared to water, then I really like the new approch and sounds.

 

Also it is more compatible with ENB which is a definite bonus!

[Salvador]

I noticed that SparrowPrince posted on the mods page to not use it as it is a rip-off of PW. He also said he had problems after the install.

 

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk 2

Haha, I contacted SparrowPrince about that, he was joking! I will update my mod, to include his new waterfall meshes. There should be no incompatibilities with any mod anymore as of version 1.8

 

EDIT: apparently I packed the wrong ESP in 1.8. I'll fix it later today.

[CiXwOw]

I noticed that SparrowPrince posted on the mods page to not use it as it is a rip-off of PW. He also said he had problems after the install.

 

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk 2

He was kidding.

[TechAngel85]

The only issues with this that I seen from the video on his page is the sound of waves splashing up against the shore when there weren't any waves. From the video, it looks as though it's the best of both Pure Waters and WATER. I'll be doing an in-depth compare of this mod and will provide a video of compares. It will probably take be a bit though, so don't expect it tomorrow.

[torminater]

Looks pretty damn good. The mod supplies waves, too, not just the sound, but test it to be sure. I'ld say we put this one into testing.