MSFS Show more of the water mask

[Ridvan Celik]

Hi all!

Just wondering if it is possible to show more of my water mask? Now when I put my water mask into the sim and exclude the water using a polygon/ water /exclude water, I can see all of my water mask, obviously after that there is no water on top.

My question is, is there a technique to show more of the water mask with water ontop? I've attached an image of how it looks in sim and how my edited image looks. Would it have anything to do with elevation data?

Thanks in advance.

 

[fabs79]

I have exactly the same problem and last time I checked it was NOT possible for 3rd party developers to create custom water masks. The engine supports it and there are examples in the world where you can see coral reefs around islands, but If I'm not mistaken only the guys at Asobo themselves can create those water masks. I found a Taiwanese scenery that had coral reefs around an atoll but they also just excluded the water which may look fine from afar but the missing water is too obvious up close. FSDG Seychelles also has coral reefs which actually seem to be under water but I haven't found out how they did it, the reefs seem to be Simobjects of some kind. If you find out how to do it let me know.

 

[superspud]

I'm playing with this at the moment and not getting very far. For my area the aerial imagery is already there if you exclude the water, the only problem is re adding the water.

If you make water polygons in thin strips they do stay transparent enough to reveal the imagery underneath, but there are the usual polygon problems with overlapping and artefacts between the water polygons. You end up with water but a series of stripes.

Bijan of the season pack fame seems to be doing something right with his new rocks and islands mod. I'd love to know how it's done - https://forums.flightsimulator.com/...unken-boats-huts-pg-trees-airports/447859/379

There's a discussion in the official developer forum here - https://devsupport.flightsimulator....er-exclusion-and-ocean-transperant-maski.html and it does not sound like it's going to be easy any time soon.

 

[superspud]

I just bought the Seychelles by FSDG which has its own water masks.

In most places it's clearly a semi transparent image floating just above the water, which unfortunately has a habit of twitching though it does look very good. In a small number of other areas I think it is underneath the water but I've no idea how they've done that.

 

[fabs79]

Yes I think Bijan is using the same technique and it seems the only way to do it right now. What I found interesting is that FSDG made their watermasks as Simobjects, so maybe there are some dynamic conditions that influence those masks, but I haven't checked the xml yet

 

[superspud]

I've been fiddling with this again for the Isles of Scilly.

It's easy enough to make a water mask, it's just a PNG with the alpha channel with enough transparency hovering over the water.

However it won't stop flickering from a distance until it's a stupid height above the water, about 15-20 metres. So it's not really practical.

That's possibly because I haven't cut enough of the surface away to make sure it's not covering any land at all, I presume the LOD from a distance twitches.

But I've noticed the Bijan water masks do the same thing so I think it might be inherent to any texture with an alpha channel. I've noticed it when using one on smaller models as well. Visibility is not very consistent.

Anyone else been playing with this?