Need help with my water render

[Terri Brown]

Ok, so here goes:

 

I need some help with my water material in the following render:

 

Here is a reference of i want to render:

with good refraction, the same blue colour and the lights visible through the water. This is another good reference of the refraction i'm aiming for - my pool wall tile material is very similar...but i'm not seeing it at all!

 

I realise at this angle I'll get a lot of reflection with a fresnel surface, but i should still see through slightly. Otherwise i need to cheat Also i probably have too much (and too large) noise on my bump map. Do you guys suggest a ripple modifier on the geometry, or is a bump mup sufficient to get this kind of effect?

 

Here are my materials, light in the pool wall, and render settings (i need to switch caustics on i'm assuming?)

 

I'm using an HDRi plugged into a VRay Dome for external light. Other lights in scene are vray and photometric.

 

Any suggestions would be super welcome.

 

Thanks again guys,

Terri

[CJI]

I would say that as its so close to the camera i would personally have the water modeled rather than use a bump map as it will look better and then use bump for small details if required.

 

I use Mental ray so not entirely sure where your problem is located but i would imagine it has something to do with the trace depth and cutoffs. I know in mental ray there are settings located in both the render settings and material settings that sometimes need tweaked to allow the proper refraction.

 

If not that its probably an issue with the fog distance and cutoffs.

 

Sorry for being so vague but i don't use Vray but these suggestions may help until someone more Vray literate shows up. These are safe pointers for any raytracer though.

[Terri Brown]

thanks curtis for the comments...will try do some tests now. I was a Mental ray user up until a month or so ago...and as much as I'm loving Vray, i must say that for ease-of-use the Arch&Design shaders are (personally) a step ahead.

[Ismael]

Turn 'Affect Shadows' On in the water material Refraction section.

[beestee]

Fog would only really need to be used if there is a noticeable change in depth, like in a pond, lake, river, or ocean rendering. I do not think a reflection pool is deep enough to worry about trying to balance the use of fog.

 

If the material in use below the water surface is also shown/seen above the water surface then you can just use the refraction color if the water is intended to have coloring.

 

I think to get the most realism out of this particular application you will want your water material to be almost absolutely clear with no shadow casting and just use the surface for simple reflections and refractions. Then make the pool sides and floor material the dark blue that you are aiming for.

[Francisco Penaloza]

Hi, I think noise will do the trick, I usually use one noise modifier inside the other, the first one will give you the large ripples and the other inside will give you small ripples details. Now need to consider if this is an interior pool and there is not water falling or anything, this water should be mostly still so no mayor waves or ripples on it. As Benjamin mentioned you need to turn on affect shadows and be sure your lights are visible or use a mesh light or self illuminated materials.

[M V]

Look at some water materials here http://www.vray-materials.de/ Does anyone agree that caustics should be on?

[beestee]

Caustics would be nice if it is receiving direct sunlight.

[Terri Brown]

Thanks guys for all the comments. problem is that whenever i turn caustics on i seem to get white spots that show up - the water in this image is so not there yet!

[Chris MacDonald]

Work on getting the water looking right before progressing to caustics. The reason you aren't picking up some lovely reflections is two fold; firstly the IOR of water is 1.33 (roughly) which will slightly increase the surface reflectivity and also due to Fresnel reflections your viewing angle isn't shallow enough to pick up any strong reflections.

 

With Fresnel, the closer your are to 0 degrees to the surface normal, the more reflective the surface gets, and the closer you are to 90 degrees (perpendicular) to the surface normal, the less reflective it is.

 

My advice would be to start with literally the most basic water material you can make and gradually adjust one setting at a time. The most basic of water setups would be as follows; Black diffuse, White Reflection, White refraction, Affect Shadows ticked, IOR of 1.33. Only once I've got this and seen how it reacts to the scene lighting would I add fog and such.

[Terri Brown]

thanks chris. i think you're right - i need to go back to basics. I had already put the diffuse black, switched off fog and put IOR back to 1.33 (which is where i started off in first place. It's always tough to get that balance of reflection and refraction right. I'm busy rendering as we speak, but seems the water is not relecting enough...got the refraction right though! Will do as you suggest Chris and go back to basics. I'll post an update of what's rendering now inabit..

[Terri Brown]

hi guys,

 

thought you would be interested to see my final water render...ended up compositing two separate laters in photoshop - one for the refraction and one for the reflection. Unfortunately it's not exactly what i was hoping for (still not totally happy about the reflections), but the deadline was today so had to settle. The architect also decided to do away with the pool lights...which i'm bleak about because i would've loved to have seen the effect...maybe for another day!

 

Here it is:

[Chris MacDonald]

The final result is nice enough though, well done.

[Terri Brown]

realised i uploaded a low res image. hope this one works better

[M V]

Photoshop is the best rendering engine on the market!