Water on 1.21 patch

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I have , but I'm currently at work - My day time water looks like your but that is because CDPR changed the water in 1.21 - But your night time water looks different , especially your first screenshot .... Something went wrong there.

An exit and load of the save resulted in the second screenshot appearance, so it may have been something temporary, however in all my screenshots (more than posted here) the water at night is still duller and has less contrast than it did before 1.20.

I don't have time to go in and take more (I can do that later on though), but here are a few screenshots that I took before today. They seem perfectly fine to me (and definitely not like yours). There is definitely something fishy going on there. It wasn't rainy though, I should mention that.

Thanks for the shots. Bit hard to tell since it's B&W rather than a comparable place in the base game but I do see reflections of the moon/sky like yours in the second shot but only at certain angles and times at night. For example here are two taken around Novigrad during a storm:




The waves are great but I've found in these conditions at night it's still plainer.
 
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I will take some comparison screenshots for you tonight.
But just know that the water has changed in 1.21 - It uses less Tessellation but looks more realistic in my opinion.
 
I guess its subjective, but I agree, I think the new water is big downgrade. I'm all for improving games through patches, but I can't remember the last time a game had so many questionable changes from the game I initially bought.
 
Ok I did some testing.
Its clear that the new water relies heavily on global lighting , where the water pre-patch was lit by "artificial" light sources.

I took some comparison screenshots to yours -
I also took some shot to show that shimmering on water only occurs in direct light - such as sunlight or moonlight.
Hence the reason why the water looks dull when there is a storm - clouds blocking light from moon.
You can clearly see that shimmering does not occur if there is shadows on the water or if light is blocked by and object - Such as a boat or an entire mountain in Skellige - CDPR took away a lot of artificial lighting and the env's rely more on "natural" sources which is awesome in my opinion.

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Noticed this the moment I saw water after the patch on Novigrad and its much worse now...the pic you took on Cunny of the Goose proves it.Didn't go to Skellige yet on 1.20 but by your pics it looks better there...but really wave movements on water that should be stopped made it look even worse.
 
The default ULTRA value for GlobalOceanTesselationFactor in the user.settings file is now 48. Don't kow why they reduced it if the water is supposed to look better, but i'll just put it back to 128. (64 was the previous default).

Could some explain me what that GlobalOceanTesselationFactor does?
Which is better higher number, or lower ?
 
I'm confused - I was under the impression that they released patch 1.20. What is this supposed patch 1.21, and why is there no thread about it in the news subsection of the forum? I also haven't received any additional updates to my game files...
 
I'm confused - I was under the impression that they released patch 1.20. What is this supposed patch 1.21, and why is there no thread about it in the news subsection of the forum? I also haven't received any additional updates to my game files...

Patch 1.21 came shortly after 1.20
 
I'm confused - I was under the impression that they released patch 1.20. What is this supposed patch 1.21, and why is there no thread about it in the news subsection of the forum? I also haven't received any additional updates to my game files...
1.21 replaced 1.20
 
Alright this water change is actually becoming a bigger concern. I'm beginning to think it might be bugged. In certain instances it looks like light blue milk, especially at night in Skellige. Also many of the puddles are almost pure white, it looks like Geralt is walking on air when he crosses them. I'll upload screens when i get the chance. I think the new water fits in Toussaint, but it really doesn't work in the base game.
 
The overall graphics of Witcher 3 was so improved with the big update, that I had to squeal like a pig of pure joy only because of seeing this great game, and to eat tons of chocolate while gaming for hours the last days, and enjoying the new graphics and the beautyful new menus.

The water is so gorgeous and realistic now that it almost swash out of the computerscreen, diving and being underwater now looks so great and realistic too. Even a better working bloom shader has been added.
Everything is almost photorealistic now.

The new overall performance is just awesome, I can now play on 1920x1080 and all settings maxed out (without Antialiasing) and with fluid 25 frames. No pop-ups of the vegetation or grass is noticable anymore.
This game has reached a new level of awesomeness.

I am not even in the mood of using any mods anymore for this game, because of the pure greatness and the look and design of the new enhanced graphics engine.
(Except the slow motion combat / blood mod, dark night mod, a not so distant camera position mod, the young Geralt face with yellow cat eyes and red-brown beard with red stubble tips, the fog mod, the autumn trees mod, and a meditation mod to be able to sit down and meditate in front of stoves or bonfires of course.... this fine mod selection is crucial for the most immersive and realistic and lore-friendly gameplay.)
 
on gog there is a changelog for 1.21 , i dont know about steam, but yu can still find the changelog 1.21 on google

I've tried. I've searched everywhere. I cannot find a 1.21 changelog anywhere. They all point to the 1.20 changelog but no one seems to have a 1.21 changelog.
 
Ok I did some testing.
Its clear that the new water relies heavily on global lighting , where the water pre-patch was lit by "artificial" light sources.

I took some comparison screenshots to yours -
I also took some shot to show that shimmering on water only occurs in direct light - such as sunlight or moonlight.
Hence the reason why the water looks dull when there is a storm - clouds blocking light from moon.
You can clearly see that shimmering does not occur if there is shadows on the water or if light is blocked by and object - Such as a boat or an entire mountain in Skellige - CDPR took away a lot of artificial lighting and the env's rely more on "natural" sources which is awesome in my opinion.

This is probably why, as for most of my time initially with the patch it was raining (in fact had to meditate about a dozen times just to get that clear weather shot).

The water as a whole is improved, so no complaints there, but it was a bit of a shock seeing the nights after liking the previous night time water lighting.

Alright this water change is actually becoming a bigger concern. I'm beginning to think it might be bugged. In certain instances it looks like light blue milk, especially at night in Skellige. Also many of the puddles are almost pure white, it looks like Geralt is walking on air when he crosses them. I'll upload screens when i get the chance. I think the new water fits in Toussaint, but it really doesn't work in the base game.

I posted screenshots here. It was a standalone thread but mods decided to merge it into this thread. The milky appearance specifically seems likely a bug, though initially I wasn't sure considering the changes to the water, and as IIRC I'd seen it once before while earlier after installing the patch.
 
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