Changing water texture in the River Lock.

[jrfolco]

I’ve been trying to change the water texture in Maddy25’s River Lock so that it matches the water texture I’m using on my route.

Here’s what I’ve done so far: I made a screenshot of the Trainz water texture, imported it into Photoshop, and determined the RGB colors.

I then used these colors, in Photoshop, to change the RGB in the Water.tga textures located in the platform & base folders of the River Lock folder, but it didn’t work. The textures are still different shades.

Is there a way to determine the actual RGB colors in the Trainz water texture, or is there another way to match the textures?

Thanks, Joe

 

[Maddy25]

Unfortunately it requires a lot of trial and error. The actual Trainz water reflects the sky, but Trainz provides no way for textures on models to also reflect the sky. So no matter what you do, it will never be a perfect match.

I ended up just matching the color of my rivers at what I considered a typical viewing angle at noon (since the sky colors and lighting angle change throughout the day). For all other viewing angles and times of day it won't be an exact match.

- Madeline

PS: One other tip -- the actual Trainz water and my lock's water planes are somewhat transparent, so the final color is influenced by the color of the ground beneath. If you just took a screenshot of the Trainz water, that would include the color of the water itself and the color of the ground beneath (and the sky reflection and the specular highlights occuring on the various ripples). Since both the Trainz water and the lock's water have about the same transparency, you should set the lock water to the RGB values in your screenshot with the effect of the ground showing through the transparent water subtracted out. An easy way to remove the influence of the ground beneath would be to temporarily paint your river bottom pure white and take a screenshot of that. Then, except for the sky reflections and specular effects, the RGB value of the Trainz water in your screenshot would be the color you want to use for the lock's water.

PPS: For my water I used an alpha (opacity) value of 90% which seemed to match the Trainz water. (100% would be completely opaque, 0% would be completely transparent).

 

[jrfolco]

Unfortunately it requires a lot of trial and error. The actual Trainz water reflects the sky, but Trainz provides no way for textures on models to also reflect the sky. So no matter what you do, it will never be a perfect match.

I ended up just matching the color of my rivers at what I considered a typical viewing angle at noon (since the sky colors and lighting angle change throughout the day). For all other viewing angles and times of day it won't be an exact match.

- Madeline

Thanks Madeline for the comeback. I originally did try the white base, and I couldn’t get that to work, but after making the changes, and going back into Trainz, I failed to realize that each time I was probably at a different angle of view, and this was affecting the Trainz water color, while the lock color remained constant.

I always use Grass A2 (kuid 1:1000) as a base for all of my water, setting the scale dial counterclockwise, and holding one of the bracket keys down while applying the texture.

Using Photoshop to determine the RGB of the Grass A2 texture, I applied the colors to the water.tga files, and after a few hits and misses, I came up with a pretty good match.

However, as you can see in the accompanying photos, the match only applies when viewing from directly above. When using a lower angle of view, the color of Trainz water changes considerably.

I’m assuming that when viewing from directly above, the reflection is more diffuse, while viewing at a lower angle, the reflection has a tendency to be more specular.

I’ve also discovered that using different skies can also have a pronounced effect on the colors.

But whatever the case, I’m very impressed with your productions. I wish I had known about them when I was working on the Cumberland to Connellsville route.

Regards, Joe