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pulling my hair out trying to make realistic ocean without plugins


stayinwonderland
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Gah, this is doing my head in.

 

Found this on youtube and the guy won't give anything away:

 

 

other than saying it's native 3ds max.

 

Then there's this video:

 

 

He gives more away in saying it was a combo of displacements, bums and the foam was falloff.

 

So I can't find any decent methods of displacing. Max has a 'waves' shader which produces stupid little concentric hard edges, noise is just old school. I also want depth and fog in the water so you can see under the surface and not just have it look like a mirror with acne.

 

I use vray, so would prefer not to go the mental ray route.

 

Any help would be great!

 

(PS. I have found a million tutorials on the net, they're all shit).

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the first one is easy

 

1) create a box with a noise modier change the strenght in the xYz

2) create a plane above it then use the geometric/deformable space warps choose the wave create that in the top. drag out the wave you may need to rotate it in the top view so it much up with the plane now bind the wave and the plane together. you mite need to animate the Amplitudes.

 

in the diffuse add a bump map noise change the noise parameters to whatever you want them to be.

now animate the materials by using the autokey. you would also need to use the CV editor to get everything correct.

 

the last is pretty much the same

create a plane above it then use the geometric/deformable space warps choose the wave create that in the top. drag out the wave you may need to rotate it in the top view so it much up with the plane now bind the wave and the plane together. you mite need to animate the Amplitudes and create the camera and make sure you have a line (path) in the motion panel choose look at target pick the line (path) and the camera will jump onto the line change the axis so the camera is facing in the X change the p.view to the carmera view as you play the thing back you will see the camera moving alone the line (path)

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Thanks for the tips guys. To Tony, I guess I should point out that I'm not necessarily interested in animating the water at this point but if it's necessary TO set up basic animation in order to get the still then i may have to resort to that.

 

Regarding fog, sure I could stick a vray fog under the water. That's next on the list. Problem I'm having is that my water is set to totally invisible, there's a big dark mass of geometry underneathe to give it that deep ocean colour... but it's VERY hard to see below the surface even slightly. Which leads me to...

 

David. Thanks for your tutorial link. I went with that but almost didn't. See, it REALLY wants to pixelate unless you UVWmap it right down to a small square. But then the displace goes nuts, so I have to lower that. Annoying because it looks more realistic at a larger size (less of a tile)... and this is using a bitmap 2048x2048! for a 640 render!

 

So my second point was that it's really hard to see under the surface. See:

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]46790[/ATTACH]

 

You can't see the portion of the ball that's under water (even though the water is set to white in the vray refraction col) and if you look carefully, there's a ball right near us under the water but very close to the surface.

 

So... is this just because the suface is so reflective that it's making it opaque because of the angle we're looking at it Vs the angle of the light?

 

Or... is there a setting in the vray material that will make it have more visibiltiy/make it more see-through?

 

EDIT:

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]46791[/ATTACH]

 

Changed sun direction. Seems to have helped. Does this look right? Still can't see the sphere on the right under the water. But this could just be the physics of how light works *shrug* But you can see the teapots under water in the link I posted above? hmmm.

Edited by stayinwonderland
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If it's important for you to be able to see a bit of the underside of the sphere, you could create an opacity mask. That would allow you to control the opacity directly beneath the ball instead of the entire surface. All you need is a blank white image with the corresponding dimensions of your plane and a black spot where the ball is positioned...

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Yeah, that's gorgeous. Your second image, with improved transparency, is looking very good too! I think you're right on. The reflectivity of the water material overwhelms the transparency. To cheat the transparency a little (to get the effect you want), you might try using a reflection map. Maybe a simple falloff map and edit the curves until you get the right amount of reflectivity vs. transparency you're looking for. Just a thought; but it looks like your already getting a very nice look.

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Thanks david. Here we are thus far:

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]46793[/ATTACH]

 

I brought in some terrain and placed it close to the surface, so we can appreciate that water appears more transparent if it has a floor plane direcly under it. I then added a fog box as it was a little too clear.

 

Now for the final challenge - caustics. Anyone?

 

I've turned caustics on, material has 'affect shadows' checked. Played with a few settings - nothing. Not even a glimpse of caustics happening. At the moment, it looks as though the light just isn't passing through the water at all.

 

EDIT: Found a few pointers on caustics. Will post something next year when it's finished calculating!

Edited by stayinwonderland
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u cant see transparency effect in deep oceans, but u'll get nice reflections near objects if cam is near the object

because of the density such effect is only visible near sea shore when water is shallow and earth is near light will travel and bounce back

 

 

i know u want it done without plugins!!! but for visualization sake check out Dreamscape plugin from Cebas its very intuitive

Edited by NeWAcEiN
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Thanks. Yeah I tried dreamscape and didn't like it. Found it hard to get anything slightly realistic with sane rendering times and also found it was really only good for making an ocean and sky by itself. I could be wrong though, but I haven't seen any examples of integrating it into anything other than just a plain sea + sky scene.

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Hey Juraj, ya I agree.

 

Check out my latest renderings on the issue:

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]46841[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]46842[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]46843[/ATTACH]

 

Currently working up a high quality render for the night time one. Started a thread on it purely to figure out why it's taking SOSOSOS long!!!! been rendering since last night and will probably not finish until tomorrow.

 

It's all about vray's fog in its material editor's refraction set up. Then one can add environment fog for a muddy/silty/algae bloom effect. Also about what you have under your surface, the angle of the light and the angle of the camera. Oh and I think making a box rather than a plane makes a difference if you want my effect of seeing into it. Although maybe this increases render times? Not sure actually.

 

Post results, i'd like to see :)

 

Side note: love this forum, I hate forums (due to idiots) but this one is one of the few helpful/friendly ones i've come across.

Edited by stayinwonderland
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You're always gonna get idots on these foums Andy that tell you thats not the way it's done or you're give good info but on the wrong topic i have that two like that on here so far i got into an augment with one of them and i got a warning just cos they have a good rep then they think they own a fourm

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Hey Juraj, ya I agree.

 

Check out my latest renderings on the issue:

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]46841[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]46842[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]46843[/ATTACH]

 

Currently working up a high quality render for the night time one. Started a thread on it purely to figure out why it's taking SOSOSOS long!!!! been rendering since last night and will probably not finish until tomorrow.

 

It's all about vray's fog in its material editor's refraction set up. Then one can add environment fog for a muddy/silty/algae bloom effect. Also about what you have under your surface, the angle of the light and the angle of the camera. Oh and I think making a box rather than a plane makes a difference if you want my effect of seeing into it. Although maybe this increases render times? Not sure actually.

 

Post results, i'd like to see :)

 

Side note: love this forum, I hate forums (due to idiots) but this one is one of the few helpful/friendly ones i've come across.

 

I tried both box and plane, and I am not sure if I saw ever a difference, I saw volumes being used for more "physical" types of liquids, like those in bottles and glasses. But it might make difference when playing with fog.

 

Interesting use of environment fog...maybe this is a slight overkill ? I try not to use GI in it when I use it, because render times multiply exponentially with litterally the same result a color in diffuse slot would provide.

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That's good to know actually, regarding how slow gi is. Say, what's that about the similarity between using GI vs color in diffuse slot? Could you explain more on how that works? cheers.

 

It's the "emission" slot I input white color. It shoudn't make any difference esp. in exterior scene. I turn GI of in it completely.

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