Path traced water animation, simple test

[Dune]

Sorted. I'll post a file in file sharing tomorrow.

[WAS]

Water is not like clouds, with particles, but just an infinitely thin sheet, like the planet. IMO the 'depth' is just a calculation, not 'real'.

Volumetrics are just calculations though, and don't rely on particles or anything. Matt introduced this as proper subsurface scattering which is a type of volumetrics. Only Standard is pseudo-volumetric (says so too). Having a type of refraction in shadows alone says there is volume calculations to give you that calculated effect.

[WAS]

@Tangled-Universe  here is a project for your study. I got something to work for shore masking after a day of fiddling: https://planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,28790.new.html

[Dune]

Maybe my English is not sufficient to truly understand the word/concept of volumetrics. Always believed it was particle related, like the clouds in TG.

Masking solved, great.

[WAS]

Maybe my English is not sufficient to truly understand the word/concept of volumetrics. Always believed it was particle related, like the clouds in TG.

I do think volumetrics fall under different categories in 3D, but in general they're just simulation of volumes. Volumes of glass/crystal. Volumes of clouds. Volume of skin, etc, etc. Anything that has volume where light transmission, light refraction, and other properties take place. Particle simulation is probably the most common, and even TG's water may use something similar by how noisy it is at low samples?

[Tangled-Universe]

Thanks WAS for chiming in on the masking, going to check it out!

Clouds can be considered "participating media", as they often refer to it in technical literature and is what I think WAS refers to with 'volumes'.
TG's water object and shader is indeed an infinitely thin plane with an approximation for volumetrics, but with different fidelities available.
A very crude non-volumetric one for standard rendering, a volumetric basic one for scatter towards normal and a fully volumetric one for scatter in all directions.

I think particles are actually not so common, except when simulating smoke/fire/water for animation. For still image work a volumetric shader suffices, because the 3d wireframe or volume shader defines the boundaries. In sumulations those boundaries are calculated from particles. The exception, of course, is when an artist chooses to simulate something for a still image, but then the shader itself is still a volumetric one.

[WAS]

Thanks WAS for chiming in on the masking, going to check it out!

Clouds can be considered "participating media", as they often refer to it in technical literature and is what I think WAS refers to with 'volumes'.
TG's water object and shader is indeed an infinitely thin plane with an approximation for volumetrics, but with different fidelities available.
A very crude non-volumetric one for standard rendering, a volumetric basic one for scatter towards normal and a fully volumetric one for scatter in all directions.

I think particles are actually not so common, except when simulating smoke/fire/water for animation. For still image work a volumetric shader suffices, because the 3d wireframe or volume shader defines the boundaries. In sumulations those boundaries are calculated from particles. The exception, of course, is when an artist chooses to simulate something for a still image, but then the shader itself is still a volumetric one.

Yeah, and I think when water has defined volume with intersection of underlying terrain, as you can see the effects changing with the depth of the water with decay and surface refraction. It looks more realistic where SR kinda just looks like XYZ warping of what's visible at surface with a haze kinda effect..

[Dune]

Thanks, Martin. Clear.

[james adamson]

Wow! 
How do you go about getting the water to have milky and then clear areas?