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AstroX1424's avatar
AstroX1424
Seasoned Newcomer
3 years ago

Editing Sea Water Reflections - A Short Tutorial.

Making this for @emorrill because they asked me to, but this tutorial is for anyone who wants to change the reflections of the sea water in their world. :D

What I mean by changing the reflection is changing how refractive the water is and how much it distorts what's being reflected onto it.
So by default the water looks like this...
https://imgur.com/vr7gXgL.png

And after editing a certain file the reflections can look like this (at its extreme), or anywhere in between.
https://imgur.com/p5wjKe9.png

This is easier to do if you use a lighting mod because then all you have to do is edit a file in the mod.
What you'll need is a program called S3PE to open up the lighting mod package file. http://www.simlogical.com/s3pe.htm

One you've installed S3PE, open the app...
Then go to 'file', then 'open'...
https://imgur.com/4wBm3Bo.png
https://imgur.com/qLfiwJk.png

Then find your mods folder and find the lighting mod .package file, once you find it open it...
https://imgur.com/kwere5W.png

Then find the line I have highlighted - right-click - then click Notepad...
https://imgur.com/Ehee1o0.png

Once Notepad is open scroll to the bottom and find the line 'RefractionDistortionScale' - by default it may be at 1 (I think, lol). To get the clear and crisp reflections like I showed above you'll change the value to 0.01 - which is the lower extreme. If you want more distortion in your reflections you can set the value higher than 0.01. Anything higher than the default value of 1.0 may not change much as I haven't tried but feel free to since you can always change the value back if you're not happy with it. Just make sure you go to 'file' and 'save' to make sure the changes are saved.
https://imgur.com/HOrmGja.png
  • wendyyi1's avatar
    wendyyi1
    New Spectator
    Thanks for this info.
    Not all lighting mods will contain a line for 'Tunable Parameters Related to Sea'
    I looked at 5 of the lighting mods that I have backed up and only 2 of them contained that line.
  • NikkeiSimmer's avatar
    NikkeiSimmer
    Rising Adventurer
    @Astro - If I could get my cityscapes in Sims 3 to look like this shot of mine in Vancouver
    https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicbp-cyV_o-pK7v4b8HpAdOxByoKzpp3Hb8iUTV9cAYAODES4JabVSvsWYH6IM0k5_DRFG1bmEpRMFXfxpabVd3obf05WqxFfWqaov-b-ykwq5OsD-a_WRbu6mEB5gR0uTujTL1ltyY5GOFTmsuCBsCtRKqZLQFkA6akfOgBp0mXAzLG-d7yfvOV9qNQ/s1600/5E265C80-50A6-4DC0-856D-4467B388D3A8.jpeg
    I’d be absolutely ecstatic.
  • NikkeiSimmer's avatar
    NikkeiSimmer
    Rising Adventurer
    @Astro, When I was taking that shot with my D50 there was a slight breeze off the water… it’s rare to find a crystal calm day to shoot and it was late evening, summer (close to 9PM). So when I replace my computer and want to do a series of city-scapes in Bridgeport, I’ll probably keep that in mind and play around with those numbers. I’ll probably be going in and out of the game adjusting the numbers to add in that little bit of reflection and tweak it to how I want. If there was only a way to get breeze effect in the Sims. ?

    I tend to go placid tranquil landscapes for Sims. Would like to do that in real life too but physical limitations…we’ll see.
    https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Xmlgn_zt0ic/YNASu6EbmtI/AAAAAAAApVg/eEkkKEnJ8lsKLT2eE6Cy5tWnsJF_ZlvPQCLcBGAsYHQ/s0/Screenshot-89.jpg

    For real photography, I gotta get myself another tripod, the one I have isn’t steady enough and the one I want at bare minimum is gonna cost me $1600 (It’s a Gitzo…what else is new; they’ve always been pricey) for the legs alone. Chalk in another $600 for the leveling head with gauges and you’re talking almost $ 2200 for just camera supports. Photography isn’t cheap and my wallet’s gonna hurt badly.
  • OMGosh thank you SO much @Astro <3 You explained it all so perfectly, step by step, with images and everything. :grin: (I'm more of a visual learner so pictures are always a huge help! :blush: ). You rock! :star:

    Once my story is completed I will have to give this a shot in my game. ;) And I'll try to remember to post pictures. :)

    Bookmarked!

    Thanks again! :smiley:
  • AstroX1424's avatar
    AstroX1424
    Seasoned Newcomer
    "wendyyi1;c-18147317" wrote:
    Thanks for this info.
    Not all lighting mods will contain a line for 'Tunable Parameters Related to Sea'
    I looked at 5 of the lighting mods that I have backed up and only 2 of them contained that line.


    True! If you wanted to do this with a lighting mod that doesn't have the line you could copy and past it from another lighting mod to that one.
  • AstroX1424's avatar
    AstroX1424
    Seasoned Newcomer
    @Nikkei_Simmer
    You definitely could! Making the number value less than 1.0 but greater than 0.01 will get you something similar to that.