Water Surface Lacks Depth and Makes Altitude Difficult to Judge

[Husar]

When flying toward the water, the surface becomes very difficult to read. It appears almost completely flat, making it hard or even impossible to judge altitude above the water during dive.

The water lacks enough visual depth and surface detail from height, so there are very few cues to help estimate height. This makes flying above the water feel unnatural and more difficult than it should.

It would be great if the water rendering could provide better depth perception and preserve visible surface detail from height and viewing angles, not just sun glint. See surface should look  more realistic.

 

Preset ultra

 

 

Edited July 20 by Husar

[AEthelraedUnraed]

11 hours ago, Husar said:

When flying toward the water, the surface becomes very difficult to read. It appears almost completely flat, making it hard or even impossible to judge altitude above the water during dive.

The water lacks enough visual depth and surface detail from height, so there are very few cues to help estimate height. This makes flying above the water feel unnatural and more difficult than it should.

It would be great if the water rendering could provide better depth perception and preserve visible surface detail from height and viewing angles, not just sun glint. See surface should look  more realistic.

 

Preset ultra

 

 

 

Is that your video? It looks like you used Sea State 0 in that video. That roughly corresponds to Beaufort 0, which in fact has very flat, mirror-like seas that make height perception difficult. See the following image: 

Have you tried the higher Sea State settings, up to 6? Those have significantly higher waves. Note that there is a bug/omission right now with the Task Manager mission generation, so that the Sea State seems stuck on 0 and doesn't change with the wind setting. You'll need to use the Mission Editor to manually change it.

[Husar]

1 hour ago, AEthelraedUnraed said:

Is that your video? It looks like you used Sea State 0 in that video. That roughly corresponds to Beaufort 0, which in fact has very flat, mirror-like seas that make height perception difficult. See the following image: 

Yes, it's my recording. I recorded it yesterday on Berloga multiplayer server  on spawn point for  1vs1 dogfight (all are above sea).  I will try manually change sea state in ME and see from what height I can see a sea surface not as flat texture. Anyway there is a room for improvement because sea is  never as futureless flat texture even when their is a flauta. This water surface implementation didn't change that much since last decade in the ROF/GB/Korea core engine.

 

Even on days with very little wind, the surface usually contains enough variation to provide texture and depth. For flight simulators, reproducing these low-frequency patterns is important because they help make altitude perception over water feel much more realistic.

From an airliner cruising at around 10 km (33,000 ft), the sea looks much smoother than at low altitude, but it is still not uniform.

Edited July 21 by Husar

[AEthelraedUnraed]

1 hour ago, Husar said:

Yes, it's my recording. I recorded it yesterday on Berloga multiplayer server  on spawn point for  1vs1 dogfight (all are above sea).  I will try manually change sea state in ME and see from what height I can see a sea surface not as flat texture. Anyway there is a room for improvement because sea is  never as futureless flat texture even when their is a flauta. This water surface implementation didn't change that much since last decade in the ROF/GB/Korea core engine.

 

Even on days with very little wind, the surface usually contains enough variation to provide texture and depth. For flight simulators, reproducing these low-frequency patterns is important because they help make altitude perception over water feel much more realistic.

From an airliner cruising at around 10 km (33,000 ft), the sea looks much smoother than at low altitude, but it is still not uniform.

Hmm now that I'm behind my laptop (a larger screen than my phone), I see what you mean.

If you carefully scroll though your video frame by frame, you see that just a few frames before you crash, the sea texture does actually change into the waves you see right at the end in the external view (and which correspond very well to Beaufort 0). But the change is very sudden and happens only when you've almost already hit the water. So it seems to be a LOD issue rather than something wrong with the sea rendering per se.

Would still be interesting to see what happens if you try it with different Sea States though.

[MajorMagee]

I used to fly in a 1948 Luscomb Model 8E Floatplane. No flaps so you had to side slip to come in over the trees and drop down on the lake. You had to know exactly when you were going to touch down so you could straighten up before touching the water or you would hit the floats on their side and rip them off. A proper flare after coming out of the side slip was important as well to avoid popping their rivets by smacking the floats down too hard. My Father In Law taught me to never look down at the water because you would see right through the surface and be deceived about your actual height. Safer to look out across the lake surface at the horizon to judge your height.  Real seat of the pants stuff.

 

[Husar]

1 hour ago, AEthelraedUnraed said:

Hmm now that I'm behind my laptop (a larger screen than my phone), I see what you mean.

If you carefully scroll though your video frame by frame, you see that just a few frames before you crash, the sea texture does actually change into the waves you see right at the end in the external view (and which correspond very well to Beaufort 0). But the change is very sudden and happens only when you've almost already hit the water. So it seems to be a LOD issue rather than something wrong with the sea rendering per se.

Would still be interesting to see what happens if you try it with different Sea States though.

Yes, it changes to a wave-covered surface, but only when you're very close to the water, which is far too late—as you noticed yourself.

 

This can definitely be done better. Cliffs of Dover and Nuclear Option already render the sea surface and wave patterns from high altitude. In Great Battles and Korea, however, the waves are only really visible from height inside the sun glint. That is a rather old and simplified way of simulating sunlight reflecting off the sea surface, with the highlight effectively following a fixed viewing angle instead of being represented across the entire water surface.