What to mess with to get rain-drop ripples in the water?

[Guest 3841499]

What to mess with to get rain-drop ripples in the water?

It bothers me when I look at any body of water during a heavy storm and see no obvious rain drop ripples. It looks so fake and I wonder if there an effect file or shader file I can play with in W3Edit to get that effect going?

I have noticed many modders remove "seeds" from effect file parameters, its the one right next to LOD. Why? What does it do? Does getting rid of seeds improve quality? And WHERE the hell do people find out about things like that? Is there a secret society of modders for W3 with special knowledge or is it random people figuring things out by trial and error? There are basic modding guides, but I could not find any in-depth guide on this topic...

 

[willief23]

MonarchX i think its mostly trial and error with most mods. Also im pretty sure its the fx files that have the ripples in the water or puddles when it rains. Because i get it in my game I use BetterFx combined with improved particle systems full but no blood from it and if improved particles has the same files as betterfx i keep the betterfx ones as they tend to have more particles in them. I also have a few fx files that are only downloaded from the mods section of this forum i will look through my fx files and send you the ripple fx if you dont figure it out. There is a mod called ZZZfx that might be the one with the weather fx particle files. Here is the link https://www.nexusmods.com/witcher3/mods/2420/?

 

[Guest 3841499]

I do something similar, but I put BetterFX Old Igni as the lowest priority because it seems more focused on increasing particle count, while Improved Particle Systems (IPS) is doing the same, but introduces more cool features, like collision, and wind-affected particles. I looked and compared IPS to vanilla, so now I know how to add wind-effects to whichever particles, but I have not figured out how to tweak collision, which I think is even cooler than wind-affected particles. I want gas, smoke, vapor, etc. collide with Geralt, monsters, NPC's as they move through those gases, just like footsteps collide with grass as you step on it.

I did try ZZZFX and I found it to produce excessive amount of random different particles. More is not always better. I prefer unique effects. Here's how I stack FX/particle mods (top - lowest priority):
- Better FX Old Igni - Better FX has many quest-scene partciel changes, unlike other similar mods
- IPS (full version with smoke shaders removed because they caused the CTD's, not the "blood CPU tweaks". Some additional color-related parameters were added to both Light and Heavy Smoke Shaders and that caused CTD's)
- Red Igni Cone
- E3 Axii
- Brutal Blood (cooked by me version because the author kept some 120MB of textures in bundled format). Just a few hours ago I figured out how to make wind affect blood from Brutal BLood
- The Aard++ (fixed meshes version I made), and ++ comes from Asmodian's GeraltLOD&Signs mod that changes files other particle mods do not and I think GeraltLOD&Signs also has Yrden tweaks.
- E3 Quen - cooked version (by me) to have texture.cache for its textures (better performance), but in such format merging with Mod Merger is not possible. IMHO, E3 Quen is by far the most advanced FX mod for Witcher 3. Its very unique, cool, and simply highly admirable for its features and visuals. I have 3 problematic mods - Glowing Witcher Eyes, The Wolf Medallion. To keep mod count low, I manually uncooked/unbundled, recooked/bundled all 3 into one mod.

I really want to know how to do collision and more about these effects. Aside from ripple effects, I have good enough imagination to think of a ton of cool effects and based on what I saw, I think achieving at least some would be possible!... If I knew more... This whole time I've been leeching and getting mods for an awesome play-through, but now I want to actually create a mod, a good one, a useful one!

 

[willief23]

MonarchX I hear ya, i spent a ton of time merging mods and making the ultimate texture pack so to speak. I have made a few texture mod but nothing big. I have made a new blood texture pack but with no w2p file changes like brutal blood uses and I seem to get just as much blood as brutal blood does. I just need to tweak some of the blood textures so they are all the same color some are more of a bright red then others.

So your E3 Quen has a texture cache file now? I would love it if you could send me the link for that. E3quen i have a hard time merging along with the wolf medallion. In the end i just gave up on the Wolf Medallion. Im experimenting with changing animation speed on files. So far I have made Geralt run and swim faster, yrden sign casts faster on the ground both versions and the sound still works, bombs throw slightly faster, crossbow either shoots slightly faster or reloads slightly faster, and dodge and roll increased by 10%.

 

[Guest 3841499]

The E3 Quen texture.cache version CANNOT be merged. The regular bundled version can be. If you try to merge the cached version - it will make WCC throw out some epic freak-out messages. What sucks is that regardless of version, I cannot get E3 Quen to work fully. It only works fully when no other mods are present. If it has the highest priority and there are other mods installed - the explosion part does not trigger. Its so weird... If it has the highest priority, then why is it happening? I am nowhere near mod limit - all is merged with 100% success and I also merge DLC's. Anyway, download link to the cached version of E3 Quen is here - https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B54HJ36TbhjwdUZ4YU1VT2Q3RFU/view?usp=sharing . Its easy to make it when its bundled-only, but if you already made a texture.cache version and want to do whatever manipulation that requires not just unpacking, but uncooking - it took me an hour to figure out WTH was going on...

 

[Guest 3841499]

Have you figured out why so many modders remove the SEEDS thing next to LOD thing? New Brutal Blood left me a bit disappointed -blood from Geralt was removed and its so ridiculous... I can't figure out how to get that blood back!

 

[willief23]

MonarchX I will look at the character blood file later today and set it up to work with one of the textures from brutal blood 3. I have no idea what the seeds thing is on the files i have seen it before but no idea what it does. I have been playing around with a couple of the magic signs aard and igni to make the distances further on them but cant really tell if the changes i did work. I guess i will try a big number to see if it does infact make aard and igni signs go out further distances.

 

[GregorWladacz]

Just as other modders, use google to answer your questions. When I was doing BetterFX, I googled nearly every line of the files to get to know what they do. I already said this on nexus.....
https://answers.unrealengine.com/questions/73478/difference-seeded.html

 

[Guest 3841499]

I had no idea that this is a universal concept and not Witcher 3-specific system. Thanks!

I really hope to get to a point where I can do something E3 Quen when I can replace effects with other effects, add new effects, etc. Its so cool. I see E3 Quen as the most advanced effect and still have no idea why it does not fully work, even when it has highest priority. What is funny is that if I stack Better FX, IPS, The Aard, E3 Axii, Red Igni and E3 Quen with highest priority - it works perfectly, so its some other mod that prevents E3 Quen bubble blow-up effect .

 

[GregorWladacz]

Maybe IPS. It messes with the signs. Yeah, the effect is great. I tried to create sth similar with the yrden sign, so the little signs cast dynamic light. But it didn't work. Maybe someone will find a solution in the future. I know that some people are working on a modkit (wolvenkit) and someone of CDPR may or may not talk to the team to help with it....

 

[TookaFace]

IPS had missing buffers files in older version, so u had missing effects (with igni), but i dont know if it still true for last version.

 

[Guest 3841499]

Its neither. Its Ghost Mode, believe it or not... I thought that maybe those effects are not just visual, but also add damage or do something with game balance and maybe it is so. There is no conflict, but when I have Ghost Mode and E3 Quen - there is no splash effect. I bet its some w2ent file controlling it...

Everything is SO heavily linked in this game...

 

[Guest 3841499]

Maybe IPS. It messes with the signs. Yeah, the effect is great. I tried to create sth similar with the yrden sign, so the little signs cast dynamic light. But it didn't work. Maybe someone will find a solution in the future. I know that some people are working on a modkit (wolvenkit) and someone of CDPR may or may not talk to the team to help with it....

Yeah, I took at a look at Wolven Kit WIP folder repository and it was not updated for months, I think...

 

[GregorWladacz]

Well, yesterday there was quite a big discussion in discord. But yes, it will take eternity to get it ready without the help of the developers.

 

[willief23]

MonarchX here is the Geralt blood file. Make sure to read my install text file for more info.
http://www.mediafire.com/file/pdhhxtmh61c1npz/Geralt+character+blood.rar

 

[Guest 3841499]

Brutal Blood developer mentioned this and I can't figure is out...:
standart_hit_player.w2p\index12\depth_fade_power 1

I do not see that anywhere - not in vanilla, not in Brutal Blood 3.0...have not checked 2.0 yet.

 

[Guest 3841499]

MonarchX here is the Geralt blood file. Make sure to read my install text file for more info.
http://www.mediafire.com/file/pdhhxt...cter+blood.rar

Can this be mixed with Brutal Blood 3.0 or must be stand-alone? I just replaced BB 3.0 files with the ones you sent, it all went fine, but 30 rotfiends exploded next to me and there's not a single drop of blood on Geralt... I tested that without other mods.

If you have a pre-made diffuse texture, can normal version of it be made without much drawing skills?

 

[Guest 3841499]

Found something that should be easier to accomplish than ripples - frost FX for armor, like Wild Hunt Minions and there are related FX files for "ice_armour", but how to make it apply to any of Geralt's armors? There are no FX files for his armors...