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How to disable wave effects (coast / shoreline waves)


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Good evening,

 

I have Global LC installed, as well as openLC Europe and openLC North America (with some regions as well).  I am trying to disable the waves appearing on the coast / shore lines.  After doing some research, LM is stating that these effects were removed in v5 and are not supposed to be present.  The culprit appears to be Orbx products.  There is a manual way to remove these effects by playing in the Terrain.cfg file (which I would really like not to if possible), but with any updates done by Orbx, these files get reactivated (see thread in LM support forums: https://www.prepar3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=137867).  Any idea how to permanently remove this?

 

Any assistance would be really appreciated. 

 

Regards,

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16 minutes ago, Doug Sawatzky said:

Hi

 

I just did a search on your behalf using "waves" for the search and it seemed to produce some topics (link below) that may be helpful. 

 

https://forum.orbxdirect.com/search/?q=waves&quick=1

Yeah I also searched, but most are P3D v4 related, so I am not sure if they are applicable to this version, especially considering that LM completely removed them... so I am still a bit surprised that they were kept by Orbx.  Plus I would like to avoid having to go play around files every time there is an update.

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Not at my lc but there are topics from a year or so ago that tell you how to disable the waves files in the effects folder. 

 

If you can't find the posts, you can go to the effects folder and find files relating to waves, I'm pretty sure they have names like Orbx-waves.fx so not hard to find them. Rename any you find to a bak suffix or similar and your waves should disappear. 

 

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On 10/16/2021 at 7:39 PM, panzer2181 said:

After doing some research, LM is stating that these effects were removed in v5 and are not supposed to be present.  The culprit appears to be Orbx products. 

 

Hello,

 

I was not aware that LM has removed the default wave effects; I'll have to check on my setup. The required default files continue to be present on each version of v5 I have tested, including the latest. (This would be expected in that those files are used by Orbx and others.)  For example:

wavecontroller.fx and the associated waves.fx are present in the effects folder.  For what it's worth, previous advice I have offered on this topic is still valid in the latest version of v5. If anything, to my eye the Orbx Global Wave Effects manually installed add-on now look better in v5 as compared to v4. As to removing all wave effects, there are several posts I have made on the subject that will still apply to v5. Can't remember where however. 

 

Cheers, 

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2 hours ago, Larry_R said:

 

Hello,

 

I was not aware that LM has removed the default wave effects; I'll have to check on my setup. The required default files continue to be present on each version of v5 I have tested, including the latest. (This would be expected in that those files are used by Orbx and others.)  For example:

wavecontroller.fx and the associated waves.fx are present in the effects folder.  For what it's worth, previous advice I have offered on this topic is still valid in the latest version of v5. If anything, to my eye the Orbx Global Wave Effects manually installed add-on now look better in v5 as compared to v4. As to removing all wave effects, there are several posts I have made on the subject that will still apply to v5. Can't remember where however. 

 

Cheers, 

Yeah I followed that advice and disabled them all.  Good to know it still applies to V5, that was one of the main questions I had - thank you for confirming.  I guess I will have to keep an eye on those files whenever I will update the LC.  Not sure if it would be possible to let the users choose whether or not we want any wave effects in the future (like in the config section)?

 

As for LM, I am simply relaying what one of their core lead wrote in the LM forums (see link above).  The files might still be there, but the effects are not supposed to be on a clean installation; "[...] We removed these effects from the scenery config in v5. [...]"

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On 10/20/2021 at 11:36 AM, shermank said:

Where can I find this as mentioned by Larry R in this thread. Thanks

Hi Sherm, 

The Orbx Global Wave Effects were included as a manually installed Add-on in the 'Extras' folder  in the PNW Ferries product. We did it this way to avoid the following problem: if the wave effects were added by Orbx Central and the user elected to install within the sim folder, a couple of default files would be over-written. This is a no-no. So although more inconvenient, manually putting the files in your P3D Add-ons folder avoids any such issues. 

 

I'll attach the zip file needed for the waves.  I hope you will take a look at the instructions attached too.

 

Global_Orbx_Wave_Effects.zip

Instructions for the new wave and surf effects.pdf

 

Cheers, 

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20 hours ago, Larry_R said:

Hi Sherm, 

The Orbx Global Wave Effects were included as a manually installed Add-on in the 'Extras' folder  in the PNW Ferries product. We did it this way to avoid the following problem: if the wave effects were added by Orbx Central and the user elected to install within the sim folder, a couple of default files would be over-written. This is a no-no. So although more inconvenient, manually putting the files in your P3D Add-ons folder avoids any such issues. 

 

I'll attach the zip file needed for the waves.  I hope you will take a look at the instructions attached too.

 

Global_Orbx_Wave_Effects.zip 73.79 kB · 5 downloads

Instructions for the new wave and surf effects.pdf 150.68 kB · 8 downloads

 

Cheers, 

 

THANKS, Larry, I'll give this a try and report back...

Sherm

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3 hours ago, shermank said:

A slight problem. I do not have an Extras folder with the PNW folder stored in my Orbx library. Maybe I should verify or reinstall PNW ferries?

Hi Sherm,

 

Everything you (or others interested) need is in the folder in the zip file I attached above plus the .pdf instructions. I copied them directly from the Extras folder in my PNW ferries installed by OC.  You don't need the ferries for the new waves to work; they were just 'extras'. 

 

Cheers

Ps: the only reason the Add-on folder was zipped was so that Orbx Central would not try to install it. 

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Hello Larry,

 

thanks for the heads up with the wave effects. One question, i get strange color effects on some of the waves, the colors look like a weather radar image.

Are the effect textures meant to work with P3Dv5?

 

Regards

Steffen 

Waves.JPG

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Hello Steffen, 

 

Yes, this is one of those frustrations where the effect looks slightly different with each version of P3D; it's a continual moving target. I'm no longer able to try to tweak the effect files for each new version, but you can if you want to spend time to do it. 

 

In this case, the original idea was to gradually darken the color of the texture as a percentage of the time the wave runs. And that time is random within a given range which makes things more complicated. It's done by using the Color Rate, Color Start and Color End lines in the .fx file.  The current version of v5 makes the darkening too obvious in some waves, like those that run the longest. 

 

Here's what you can try:

in your \Documents\Prepar3D v5 Add-ons\Global_Orbx_Wave_Effects\Effects, find the effect file you suspect is being used. Ignore any of the files with Cntrl or controller in the file name. Open the suspect effect file in Notepad. For many shoreline waves, this file is used:  fx_LR_Orbx_oceanwaves.fx

 

Scroll down to the [ParticleAttributes.0] section and look for the line Color End=.....    For example it may be Color End=120, 129, 138, 0 This is the color at the end of the wave and in this case is quite dark. Try just lightening it up by uniformly increasing the first 3 numbers (for red, green and blue) by 40 or 50 as a first guess. There is no magic to this; it's trial and error. If your first attempt does not do what you want, just keep at it. I can't tell you how many hours I spent doing this sort of thing.  

 

Once you get something you like, keep a copy of the effect file just in case. However, because this is a manual installation, Orbx Central should not ever overwrite it. 

 

If you are not sure you are editing the correct wave effect file, the easiest check is to temporarily change the starting color to say pure red like this: Color Start=255, 0, 0, 160 If you have edited the correct file, the waves you are trying to fix will now start out red. If they are not, you are editing the wrong file -- or not doing it correctly. 

 

Cheers, 

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I noticed this effect when changing from v4.5HF3 to v5.2HF1. I'm a fan of your waves Larry and I had to make sure I re-installed it when upgrading the library from 4 to 5 in Orbx. It does not happen all the time but does get your attention. I thought it was related to the sun's direction.

I would be interested in getting a copy of the file if anyone has time to fiddle with it.

Aussie

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Hi @Whenmaker

 

I'm glad my guess on the end color fix worked for you.  You might end up wanting to fiddle a bit more as you see the waves in more circumstances. As Aussie mentions above, the new lighting system P3Dv5 makes the waves (and other things too) highly dependent on the time of day, the time of year to some extent and the weather. The angle of the sun is especially important and as you fly the relation between the waves and the sun changes continually. The lighting system is not perfect and sometimes produces less than realistic colors (hue, saturation or lightness), but in general with each point version it gets better. 

 

I'll mention one other adjustment that seems to produce different results from version to version;  the 'alpha' or transparency value of the starting color.  It's the  4th number in the Color Start line.  The range is zero to 255, 255 being completely opaque. If the waves seem to harsh to your eye, you can lower the number, or raise it if they you want them more prominent.  

 

Cheers, 

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