Modeling a river

[Ardak]

Hi, I have landscape scene, and I am wondering how to make a river flowing through the scene. Is there some way I can define the rivers form and then use reactor water for example, or cut a path to my landscape for the river and then apply it to that or something like that? Thanks for help.

[Tommy L]

I think more info is needed to provide an answer. Viewing distance would be the main question, also, is it animation or still? Can you post a progress render or sketch/storyboard?

[nelpiper]

If you´re using Mental Ray, you can apply an A&D Material water preset which is very nice for water. You can have a simple plane with this shader. If you use Vray, a plane and a noise modifier for example, will be one option. Hope it helps.

[Ardak]

 

Here's rough render of the scene. The river should run through in the valley below all the way to the horizon.

 

 

Here's real world reference of the river.

 

PS: It might seem that there's a bay in the distance in the rendered image, but that is just an error due to misaligned planes.

[Tommy L]

So its just a still image? Id probably use a loft, rectangle. Gives a nice degree of control ad mapping is easy. you're only going to see the top face of the loft. Make the rectangle super skinny in verticle dimension and make the loft wrap the map x2. Therefore youre able to paint a map that will follow the river without messing around with unwrapping.

That said, the angle at which you are seeing the water dictates that it will pretty much be a highly reflective material (angle of incidence).

 

Youve made a great start to the image. I think using a z-pass in post is crucial in a scene like this. You need to use the zpass to control desaturation (mainly of the red and green channels) as it goes toward the horizon. You can allso slightly blur the distance to give the impression of haze (not to be confused with DOF but you'd use the same workflow, maybe on a screen layer).

 

Tom.

[Ardak]

Thank you Tommy for informative answer! If you have the time, could you give me a bit more detailed guide on how to use the method you described above to make the river? I am using a fog element in the render environment settings with white map to simulate atmospheric perspective. Maybe I should add a bit more intensity to the map, but I didn't want to do too much, for the real world scene doesn't have that distance fog so much either. If you are so kind, I would like to hear about the usage of zpass also!

 

Yes, it's a still image. It's one of the preliminary assignments to art school I am applying. The theme of the assignment is to depict some apocalyptic event happening in some place near my hometown, but real world material can't be used, it can be only be used as a reference to one's work. And for the apocalyptic stuff, I am going with the basic meteor strike thing.

 

And nelpiper, sorry but I am using VRay for this one!

[Tommy L]

A loft is a compound object (See object creation panel in max). Read some tutorials, its a powerful modeling tool...

 

A Z-depth pass is a seperate render genrated at rendertime which will create a greyscale image. The values in the greyscale correspond to the distance 'into' the scene. Further is black, closer is white. You set the B/W (far/near) distance values when you select VrayZDepth in the render elements panel.

This pass is primarily used in post production as a controller for Depth of Field, however, in your case is would be used as a mask for color/saturation adjustment in photoshop. And it would also be used as the channel for driving a lens blur in photoshop.

 

You have a huge challenge in doing a meteorite strike. Let us know how you get on.

[Ardak]

Thank you guys for your help, this is the final render:

 

 

I think it turned out okay.

[Gary Ledgerwood]

That did turn out pretty sweet! Its too bad you cant show some sort of motion on the tall pines in the foreground to show them being blown back. Other than that, I really dig the vibe.

[Ardak]

That did turn out pretty sweet! Its too bad you cant show some sort of motion on the tall pines in the foreground to show them being blown back. Other than that, I really dig the vibe.

 

Thank you numbus. Oh I didn't even thought of that! It could have aided the feeling of massive explosion really nicely. I didn't have too much time thought, it was preliminary assignment and my deadline was coming really fast. And ofcourse it would have been better to render the background and foreground as separate layers, to edit the light affection on the background much better and thinks like that, but in general, a good piece to make next one better!