Water Shader problem

Started by cyphyr, August 31, 2018, 03:54:22 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

cyphyr

I am trying to use the water shader for an ocean/sea viewed from reasonably high up. The problem is that it is reflecting the clouds which in my experience and numerous shots on the web it dose not. It reflects the general ambience of the sky and any object close to it but clouds get almost completely lost.

I assume this is because the rough surface of the ocean blurs the reflection out completely (happy to be corrected on this).

Now I could just turn off or down reflection but this darkens the water surface.

I have tried mixing in specular reflections and this seems to make the water turn somewhat "milky".


A bit of a puzzler. Open to suggestions ... :)
www.richardfraservfx.com
https://www.facebook.com/RichardFraserVFX/
/|\

Ryzen 9 5950X OC@4Ghz, 64Gb (TG4 benchmark 4:13)

WAS

Quote from: cyphyr on August 31, 2018, 03:54:22 PM
I am trying to use the water shader for an ocean/sea viewed from reasonably high up. The problem is that it is reflecting the clouds which in my experience and numerous shots on the web it dose not. It reflects the general ambience of the sky and any object close to it but clouds get almost completely lost.

I assume this is because the rough surface of the ocean blurs the reflection out completely (happy to be corrected on this).

Now I could just turn off or down reflection but this darkens the water surface.

I have tried mixing in specular reflections and this seems to make the water turn somewhat "milky".


A bit of a puzzler. Open to suggestions ... :)

I've seen the clouds reflected in a plane? There is just a lot of roughness so it's not clear reflections.

I'd imagine you'd want to turn of reflections and highlights in the water shader, and than add your own reflection shader and turn of ray traced reflection. Or you could play with a roughness setup with ray traced reflections.

cyphyr

Yeah I have turned OFF reflections in the water shader and merged it with a reflection shader with soft shadows enabled (0.4) Pretty slow but it is better. A long way from what I want.
www.richardfraservfx.com
https://www.facebook.com/RichardFraserVFX/
/|\

Ryzen 9 5950X OC@4Ghz, 64Gb (TG4 benchmark 4:13)

WAS

Quote from: cyphyr on August 31, 2018, 04:54:23 PM
Yeah I have turned OFF reflections in the water shader and merged it with a reflection shader with soft shadows enabled (0.4) Pretty slow but it is better. A long way from what I want.

Here's an example using a bit of softness to the ray traced reflections, and the index of refraction turned down (higher values seem to intensify clouds and give a more straight up reflection).

cyphyr

That's cool, a little dark, I guess (like it just about always is) it mostly about finding the right settings to tweak in :)
www.richardfraservfx.com
https://www.facebook.com/RichardFraserVFX/
/|\

Ryzen 9 5950X OC@4Ghz, 64Gb (TG4 benchmark 4:13)

WAS

#5
Quote from: cyphyr on August 31, 2018, 07:32:48 PM
That's cool, a little dark, I guess (like it just about always is) it mostly about finding the right settings to tweak in :)

At a high altitude, you're really not seeing any water volume vs reflection of the sky. Why it's so solid blue.

You could simulate this with volume density and a blue colour.

The darkness is more what you'd see under clouds (which some of it is) but it's a little extreme with default water settings. Meant for closeups.

Dune

Dialing down the amount of reflection to 0.7 or so would also help.

cyphyr

Hmmm, kinda worked, kinda didn't. Of course the soft reflections created a blocky output (I should have remembered).
Also I'm going for a somewhat unrealistic element in that I still want the water to have volumetric sub-surface depth to show the detail beneath it.
Creating extra roughness in the water (as per my advice in a previous post lol) may help as long as I can keep it small enough to effect the reflection but not be seen otherwise.
www.richardfraservfx.com
https://www.facebook.com/RichardFraserVFX/
/|\

Ryzen 9 5950X OC@4Ghz, 64Gb (TG4 benchmark 4:13)

Dune

Rough water and clouds are always difficult, often producing grain as well. I'm working on a water (and shark) scene atm and use part water shader (for close-up transparency), part default shader (for distant light through waves), and 2x reflective shader with distance shader to decrease RT reflection in distance. Faster, was my main goal.

WAS

Quote from: Dune on September 01, 2018, 06:04:08 AM
Rough water and clouds are always difficult, often producing grain as well. I'm working on a water (and shark) scene atm and use part water shader (for close-up transparency), part default shader (for distant light through waves), and 2x reflective shader with distance shader to decrease RT reflection in distance. Faster, was my main goal.

Probably works out good if your water works like I am imagining, especially speed.