Super Mario Sunshine's Water?

[kryzon]

Hello,

I've been investigating for a while how Super Mario Sunshine implements that water material that you see when swimming on the sea, or even in pools in the game.

So far, I have the theoretical approach:
http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?p=1421981

...and just recently I remembered that there is the 'practical' approach, trying to unpack the game's original files and structure in an attempt to find out what really goes on.

Did anybody find information of how the water surfaces are textured, what texture they use (big chances it's animated), and any other technical information about them?

Thanks for the help,
Kryzon.

 

[Myuutsuu]

From what I recall, I remember seeing Shadow Mario's textures... and those were all in black-and-white. So, good chance the water textures of the game are in black-and-white also, but yes, they probably come in large numbers for animation purposes.

 

[thakis]

As far as I remember, the water textures are in an extra bmd file. I looked at them in bmdview2 at some point. I don't remember specifics, but I know that the water textures looked very different at different mipmap levels.

I didn't attempt to figure out how the refraction works.

 

[kryzon]

I think I saw that same BMD. It was in the Bianco level, at the Map folder. It's called "biancoriver".
Those different mipmap levels are probably a way they thought out to store the frames - I'll check it further.

Thanks for the replies.