I've been researching and testing methods to produce realistic waves and swell in TG2, and finally making some exciting progress. As you can see, there is still plenty of work to do, but I am excited by the results so far. This is mainly a "proof of concept" image and is not fully complete. I didn't finish some elements that are off in the distance, and there are plenty of things that could be dialed in better.
Anyway, this is a 100% TG2 render, with no post processing. The camera could be moved around anywhere within the scene with no problems. In fact, if done properly, I believe this could be an animated scene!
Though there is no post-processing, it did require pre-processing in Photoshop, but this was actually not all that hard. Here is what I did:
I started off by painting the rocks on a 1000^2 pixel image in PS, simply painting the rocks and cliffs where I wanted using a larger rough brush. This method gives amazing control. This took only a few minutes, as I knew there was an "add fractal detail" option that would be applied by TG2, adding the neccessary "crags" and "crinkles" on the rock faces later.
Next, I drew in the swell lines as a second layer using the rock map as a guide, so I knew where the swell would meet and be affected by the rocks. This image would serve as swell displacement only. Additionally, I have been a dedicated surfer all my life, so I tried to use some of this knowledge to assist.
The final image was to paint in the water color and foam effects. I did this on a 3rd layer so I could see where the waves and rocks were, which I could use as a guide for water color and foam placement. This took about 20 minutes or so to paint. I then separated and saved each image as a different file, then set them up in TG2 appropriately. After this, its all 'standard' TG2 work.
By the way, the water itself is NOT a water plane, and is simply part of the terrain. The rocks and grass colors are standard stacked power fractals (similar to Volker's technique), but with a low altitude constraint so it doesn't cover the water. The foliage is the same, just populations with altitude and slope constraints.
Anyway, I hope you like the image and can see the possibilities I see with this new "wave and water" technique.
