|
Post by ChippedSim on Jul 24, 2020 7:23:28 GMT -5
Hey I'm currently struggling a little bit with finding out what controls the water texture of the aquarium. As soon as I clone and edit the cats & dogs aquarium the water texture vanishes even if I just delete the deco inside the aquarium. I tested cloning the BG fish bowl and edited the shaders to match the cats & dogs aquarium and the water texture shows up but way too strong. I figured it has something to do with the additive shader but all three packages are set up the same. The textures are the same as well and the all have the exact same vertext painting so I'm a little bit lost. Left is the aquarium cloned from cats & dogs with the deco removed -> no water texture visible Middle is the heavily edited fish bowl clone -> texture shows up but way too strong Right is the original aquarium from cats & dogs Does anyone what controls the water texture and why it doesn't show up at all on the left tank?
|
|
|
Post by simsi45 on Jul 24, 2020 10:08:06 GMT -5
So I've worked on aquariums before and I have to say they are quite complicated objects.
The water, is just a texture that is being applied on to a part of the mesh. I haven't worked on that particular aquarium from Cats&Dogs (i have worked on the Spa Day ones) so I'm not sure what part of the mesh it is, you can easily find it out by inspecting it in Blender (or whatever software you use)
My guess is that either you accidentally deleted that part of the mesh, have its cut number wrong, or you need to remap that mesh part onto the water texture. If you have actually deleted it, you can try and open up the original aquarium export that part as a Wavefront object and reimport it into your edited mesh.
Hope this made sense.
EDIT: I want to add that within your custom aquarium project, under the texture tab there should be 2 entries. 1 contains the aquarium texture whereas the one under it should contain the water texture itself.
|
|
|
Post by ChippedSim on Jul 24, 2020 11:25:14 GMT -5
simsi45 Thanks for your answer! I know the water is an extra texture and know how the aquarium is set up so that's why I'm confused. I haven't deleted the water mesh or edited the texture in any way. The only thing I edited was to remove the drawers below the tank and delete the decorations inside which are both in a different group than the water. I didn't edit the water shader either. There has to be something else that controls how the water gets displayed since all three tanks are set up the same way texture and shader wise. I didn't touch the uv mapping either.
|
|
|
Post by ChippedSim on Jul 24, 2020 12:51:25 GMT -5
Something about the lighting is just off. I added the point light to the BG tank and the vertex painting is the same between both aquariums. Even with all lights in the room turned off the cats & dogs tank has a glowing water texture that my tank is missing. Additonally if you turn the light on and change the color and compare both tanks they look completely different:
|
|
|
Post by freeasabird on Jul 24, 2020 12:55:27 GMT -5
I have made a lot of aquariums but all of them have been cloned from a Spar Day tank (the one with just 2 meshes). The water didn't used to show until S4S added the geometry stats (I think that's right but could have the description wrong). I always find that moving the water uv made no difference, I now put the water texture on the top of the tank so it ripples like my real life tank water. Maybe S4S missed the update for the Pets tank?
Forget the above you pics show I was wrong.
|
|
|
Post by ChippedSim on Jul 24, 2020 13:13:09 GMT -5
The aquariums don't have Geometry-States.
The problem is when I clone the cats & dogs tank the water texture doesn't show up at all. If I clone the BG fishbowl and edit the shaders and light resources the water shows up but the lighting and transparency is off. So I'm kinda lost what the issue could be.
|
|
|
Post by freeasabird on Jul 24, 2020 13:14:36 GMT -5
Ok I am unwell today so I'm not functioning within normal peramintures. Before I crash I suggest you have a look at one of my tanks in Blender. If nothing more it might make more sense of what I was trying to say above. I don't move the light uv (not the water) as it's a bugger to get it to light properly. Best of luck, sorry not to be of more help.
|
|
|
Post by simsi45 on Jul 24, 2020 13:16:30 GMT -5
Could you provide a download link to your package so we can take a closer look?
|
|
|
Post by ChippedSim on Jul 24, 2020 13:27:52 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by ChippedSim on Jul 24, 2020 13:38:34 GMT -5
BTW I did some further testing and as soon as I export and reimport the mesh from the cats & dogs tank the water texture is gone. Could this be a bug or a blender issue? I use blender 2.79
-EDIT- It happens even without hopping into blender so I guess it's a problem from S4S? I'll test if the same thing happens with the spa day tanks now
-EDIT2- Spa day tanks are working fine
|
|
|
Post by simsi45 on Jul 24, 2020 13:52:52 GMT -5
Ok so after comparing your aquarium to one of mine, I did manage to make the water texture appear by messing a little bit with the Model LOD values. The only issue I see is that depending on the camera angle the water can get much brighter from its normal value. I will test some more and will compare it to my other aquariums. HERE is a link to a pic
|
|
|
Post by ChippedSim on Jul 24, 2020 14:06:35 GMT -5
simsi45 I guess you used the cats & dogs clone version? It's good to know it's possible to make the water texture show up somehow! Still strange that it won't show up even without changing anything when cloning that tank. I would prefer to use the BG package though if possible. Compared to the C+D aquarium the water texture also looks a lot stronger so that brings me back to my original question of what's responsible for making it look "softer". But it looks a lot more like the glowing original now compared to my BG package!
|
|
|
Post by simsi45 on Jul 24, 2020 14:20:10 GMT -5
ChippedSim Yes that is the C&D version I altered, I haven't looked at the BG yet. Now the reason the water can appear softer can be caused by many factors. Most likely the PhongAlpha properties (the glass part) of the fishbowl, has different values on its transparency than the C&D aquarium. This means that the more transparent it is the more vibrant the water texture becomes, as it is underneath the glass part. When I was working on my aquariums, the easiest way I found to make it more vibrant was alter the textures themselves. I gave the glass a slight blue hue and made it somewhat more transparent, while saturating the water texture to become more blue and vibrant. If you want a softer look you can try experimenting by doing the opposite of what I suggested. Changing the light position,color and intensity can also help boost the color.
|
|
|
Post by simsi45 on Jul 24, 2020 14:27:20 GMT -5
ChippedSim So I took a look at the BG version and in my end it's not bright at all and I think I know why. The fishbowl that was used as a clone, didn't have its properties altered in a way lamps,lights,aquariums do so even though the mesh is vertex painted it won't light up. I actually ran into that issue today myself, and I'm unsure as to how to enable the mesh to light up using its vertex paint. You should know however that even if you do manage to make it light up, it will act the same as the C&D version I showed above in the screenshots. Turns out the glass becoming brighter is a thing for the other EA aquariums too so it's not a fault on our end. So you can either use the C&D version and enable its water texture, or wait for someone more experienced to show us how to enable the mesh to light up, it's up to you!
|
|
|
Post by ChippedSim on Jul 24, 2020 15:00:06 GMT -5
simsi45 Thanks for the help! I set up the phongalpha shader to be the same as the one from the cats & dogs aquarium in one of my tests an it still looked the same but tweaking the textures and playing around with the shader settings is probably going to be the best solution. For making it BG compatible I just had a new idea inspired by what you said. Maybe I'll just try to clone a lamp instead so it should recognize the vertex paint. That means setting up all shaders again but maybe it's worth a try!
|
|