Water at "not water-level".

I just noticed how the Upper Rihlon River doesn't give the speed boost it usually does as you skim over water.

Then I realised that this bit of water is not actually at Water level. (FYI. Every map has water at the same height, and the rest of the map is build on top of it.)

I wonder if they can fix this somehow (like they did in the desolation, where the sulphur isn't at the exact same height everywhere, but does grant the speed boost)

Ofcourse, I wonder if they can make water at not water level all together and keep all the same mechanics (Or vice versa and make land based content somewhere underwater in an airbubble/cave). I feel like that if we ever would have and underwater expansion, these kind of structural details will make a huge impact on creating interesting maps. Ofcourse, so far water that is not at water level never was more than a slight layer to obfuscate the fact you can't actually swim at that height, or skim apparently for that matter.

I wish they could look into changing that. Underwater tunnels to walk, or getting into underwater bases where you can walk, OR swimming through an water stream higher upstream, or even through the air, could be very itneresting, well... to me.

The answer is Yes and No. Yes its possible: but its abnormally complicated on both the engine and map design side of things, since its no longer using universal values of the map, and shifts that to regionally defined properties of the map. For instance, a high altitude body of water has to have a dimensional boundary defined (usually a cubic volume) that flags the area has having "underwater" properties, and setting up the engine to now check for that property every cycle rather then assume it based on the global POS values. It'll likely also require an additional plane placed on top of the water to tell the engine its a water surface. Remember.... "Water" isn't really recognized by the engine; its working on the assumption that anything with Negative Z is below sea level, and Zero Z is sea level.

But from what I've seen, "water surface" might actually be a property of terrain surfaces already in the engine. POF seems to do this in a few weird places, and the Skimmer responds to it like it would whenever the client is using it drive interactions, debuffs or effects.

I never considered using the skimmer there, I always do beetle, ramp max speed and fly.

I was half way along, before I thought "oh right water i could use my skimmer!" After 10 seconds of relative snailpace I realised it wasnt working. At first i thought it was a bug... after which came the waterfall and I was like, oh right...

@FrizzFreston.5290 said:After 10 seconds of relative snailpaceHinting of the next mount?

@"starlinvf.1358" said:The answer is Yes and No. Yes its possible: but its abnormally complicated on both the engine and map design side of things, since its no longer using universal values of the map, and shifts that to regionally defined properties of the map. For instance, a high altitude body of water has to have a dimensional boundary defined (usually a cubic volume) that flags the area has having "underwater" properties, and setting up the engine to now check for that property every cycle rather then assume it based on the global POS values. It'll likely also require an additional plane placed on top of the water to tell the engine its a water surface. Remember.... "Water" isn't really recognized by the engine; its working on the assumption that anything with Negative Z is below sea level, and Zero Z is sea level.

But from what I've seen, "water surface" might actually be a property of terrain surfaces already in the engine. POF seems to do this in a few weird places, and the Skimmer responds to it like it would whenever the client is using it drive interactions, debuffs or effects.

What's more likely is they use a "ray" shooting from the bottom of the mount that has a callback which increases the speed when the ray hits a particular type texture or material. That's how this sort of thing is programmed in many game engines and games. Google it.