Watch_Dogs - General moding

Wow, it works perfectly. Thank you so much.

Does that mean that there will be no way of properly fixing it?

Yes, I can confirm that this bug is present in consoles as well (at least PS4 version) but it's not as usual as it is on high end PCs (I'd say that on consoles 20-25% of the times the bug doesn't appear and the animation is triggered).

In my low-end PC it is triggered pretty much every time, but framerate is awful, so I don't play there.

Anyway, really awesome discovery TXGT, you never cease to amaze me!

 

No, I don't think it's possible from our side. The devs definitely can fix that but they're too busy making WD2 and it's DLCs.

 

Puddle reflections work with the exact same modeling and fidelity than car ones.

Neither are on real time, they use a secondary model of the city (way less detailed, with much fewer draw distance, with less objects and super simplified in short).

Billboard Screens are the only thing that is reflected on real time, as shown in the video. And they do reflect in cars as well.

But yes, it would be great that those reflections used for puddles and vehicles were used on the windows as well. The question is: COULD YOU?

 

Our best bet at enabling the real time reflections on buildings is to edit the .bin material files (of each window of each building...), but me and infiniium tried doing this some time ago with no luck, it's possible to find our posts about these tests in this forum if anyone is interested.

 

I know I've repeated myself hundreds of times, but, are you sure it's impossible to do something about the sun's glare size?

 

You mean lensflare or what exactly? Take a screenshot and mark your "glare" in Paint.

 

There you go:

 

It's not glare, it's called sun specular. It's bigger in PS3 version because the glass on the building have different specular parameters than PC's. I don't know how to change that. Maybe tweak "material.bin" file. The Silver may know which one needs tweaking.
I could be wrong though. Maybe it's caused by low geometry/polygons on PS3.

 

I don't think that the difference is caused by the material parameter setting, every building have its own windows material so I higly doubt that they somewhat changed the specular everywhere specifically for pc, it's most probably a side effect of the consoles lower lod and shaders quality. I can speculate that for example a lower quality building model could have one single flat face for the whole side before loading the high quality one with all the details modeled in 3d, and the single face version could have a different specular due to the single material applied that includes all the stone glass frames etc. Another cause could be the lower quality consoles shaders, that maybe gives a less precise output overall resulting in a more approximated specular, thus a wider and more glossy specular instead of a more "accurate" one. Actually I'd say that it could easily be a combination of both.

 

Well, thank you both of you for expressing your opinion and trying to shed light on this issue, but I beg to differ. I'm convinced that this was a design choice taken very consciously. They simply wanted the "sun's specular" to be bigger on last gen vesions of the game. I'm sure there's a parameter that determine its size, and that parameter could be manipulated. Unfortunately I have no way to prove my point, but I suggest you to try stop thinking like a modder and start thinking as a developer. From a developer point of view, it doesn't make sense that a technical side of things would inevitably define such an important feature of the game and they simply didn't notice or weren't able to resolve it.

And if you remember correctly, I referred to the glare as the "sun's reflection on buildings" and still you didn't understand. But I still think "glare" could be usable in this context ("4. to shine with or reflect a harsh, dazzling light")

In any case, thank you.

 

You might want to drop shader settings or reflections to a medium in a graphic menu and see if sun specular will be bigger.

I'm sure it's because of graphics of last gen, not a design choice.

 

For a better test I would put everything on medium, since even things like the the LOD could "cause" it.

 

They're not in real time, how many times do I need to say it?

 

They are real time reflections, it doesn't really matter how many times you say the opposite. The paraboloid reflections technique that WD uses is a real time reflections technique, the quality of such reflections (LOD of reflected objects, objects omitted from reflection, etc) has nothing to do with them being real time.

I notice that you talk a lot like you know what you're saying, but you actually don't, and you insist to rectify experienced modders with your newbie "knowledge". Please give some credits to the people that are here from long time and that knows WD modding a lot better than you, and stop acting like that.

 

Ok then. You're getting the wrong impression, but even if you didn't, there's absolutely no need to get any rude.

Let's answer:

-Indeed, I am a "newbie" with no knowledge on modding. I have never pretended to seem otherwise. Actually, I gave $30 USD to TXGT for helping me out with some mods, because I think your work is superb and I'm simply not capable of doing it myself. I even said your work with the Cloud Gate was great, don't you remember? I could not have more admiration for you all. Honestly.

-I indeed have no idea of what a "real time reflection" actually is, and I didn't want you to bother you with my comment. I'm glad that you explained to me what you did and I'd be even more grateful if you explain a lot more about that (what must have/use a reflection technique to be "real time").
Prior to your comment, I thought that a real time reflection should cast reflections for the environment just as they're happening (including cars, for example), because that's exactly what I heard on a YouTube video from a guy that I claim him some expertise. It's not about Level of Detail or omitted objects in Watch Dogs reflections, it's about that they're not even close to the normal version of the city... at some points it seems that they actually made from scratch a secondary version of the city and they weren't meant to be precise at all. It's like they could have put anything there (an orange where is an apple and a tree where is an L-Train) and the reflections would still count as "real time reflections" for you. And it may be the case, I don't know.

-I still think that sun's specular size was a design choice, sorry. Yes, I know you guys are way more intelligent than me and you guys know much better how the systems of the game actually work, but why don't you try to explain me why exactly are you thinking what you are believing instead of limit you to say that "I don't know what I say, but talk like I did"?

-To clarify: I don't talk like I knew, because I'm very aware that I don't. But as far as I can tell, as far as I can see, as far as the information that I've got and my mind allows me to see, it WAS a design choice. You're not needed to be modder to have logic, or even so-called "common sense". Some times you give me the impression of lacking a bit of that, no matter how expert you are or whether if you're the best of modders or not (and you are).

-Just for the record, I'm here since the very beginning, even before the game was launched.

-I'll test it right away.

 

Yeah, I agree too. Seen a huge difference between last gen's HDR and next gen's. Try to enable the ps3 present from the external xml in user/document/my games/watch_dogs or something. Might just work.

 

Rude? Maybe I would be rude if without any modding knowledge I would go into a modders forum asking to expert modders how many times I have to teach them about the truth of a technical aspect of the game that they still didn't understand, this would be rude. Or for example it would be rude if without any modding knowledge I would tell expert modders that they don't agree with me on a technical aspect of the game simply because they lack logic and common sense. But since for you none of these things are "rude" then my reply surely wasn't too, by logic (or common sense).

Let's answer:

- You say that you are a "newbie" with no knowledge on modding but you behave like the newbie knows the truth and the expert modders that you admire are wrong, and needs the newbie to repeat them the truth many times to agree... otherwise they lack logic or common sense. Please act like you believe what you've written, because as of now you behave the opposite.

- You say that you actually have no idea what a real time reflection is, yet you really acted like you did (and you had to repeat us again...), hence my reply. A real time reflection is a reflection that is rendered in real time, not static, to make it simple. If you want to learn more details you have many ways to do it.

- Every single expert modder that replied about the "glare" also explained to you exactly why he didn't agree with you, so I don't know what you are talking about... :3eyes:

- Of couuurse... None of the expert modders agrees with the newbie so they must lack logic or common sense. It's not because their knowledge and experience tells them that the most probable reason is not the one that the newbie assumes (without any technical knowledge or other proof of any kind to support that). Yep it's exactly like you said, you got us.

- It's not about how old you are (well partially maybe...) but more about how much experience you have.

- Yep test with everything to medium for example, maybe this coincides with the settings used in your reference screenshot.

 

Hey guys, I've been modding without anyone's knowledge except for my old moddingfriends here, and now that there's finally some actions here in the forums I decided to show you what I've been doing. I think I'm getting really close to the PS4 reveal face

Screenshots

 

WATCH DOGS 2! Time to get hyped!

http://youtu.be/WKKTC1a2tVk

 

Is there a mod that allows you to kill gang hideout leaders?