Thaw

Kevin F · January 15, 2010, 09:26:04 AM

A variation on my current theme.
C&C welcome.

Seth · January 15, 2010, 09:27:09 AM

you should limit the minimum altitude of the snow so it doesn't appear under the water

inkydigit · January 15, 2010, 09:39:26 AM

agree with Seth, my only crit though!

Henry Blewer · January 15, 2010, 10:41:32 AM

Or change the coloring below the water to look like ice (and just a bit above the water surface)

Kevin F · January 17, 2010, 02:51:52 PM

Yep, you're right - forgot about that! I gave it the same settings as my recent iceberg pic, and it's not the same for snow!
Anyway here's a new version that I've been playing with. Not really worked but I've put it up here to be shot down.
The idea was to try and give the effect of ice forming or breaking up on the surface or just underneath the water.
Needs a lot more work yet though. C&C welcome.

domdib · January 17, 2010, 02:59:59 PM

That is a rather interesting render, with some quite convincing effects. One thing I noticed is in the far left corner on the water, there seems to be triangles just visible.

Hetzen · January 17, 2010, 03:17:05 PM

The shift from green to an overall blue hue really helps this. From the thumbnail it looked like a photo, and the larger isn't too far off. Not sure about the ice in the water. Maybe use the PF that generates the white splodges to mask between two water shaders, one having a lower decay distance with a blue tint and lighter volume colour. Maybe even add some displacement with a colour adjusted perlin ridges or two to simulate small cracks. I'm rendering from AFX at the moment. Will have a play once it's done.

Kevin F · January 17, 2010, 04:58:24 PM

Quote from: Hetzen on January 17, 2010, 03:17:05 PM
....... Maybe use the PF that generates the white splodges to mask between two water shaders,

haha you've discovered my method! _ two water shaders, no PF used. Water shaders at slightly different heights were merged and tweaked to give this effect. It needs more work though. I did have a really nice wet looking icelayer with a blue/green tinge with one set of values, but hard to replicate and make look convincing. Back to the drawing board!

Kevin F · January 17, 2010, 04:59:17 PM

Quote from: domdib on January 17, 2010, 02:59:59 PM
That is a rather interesting render, with some quite convincing effects. One thing I noticed is in the far left corner on the water, there seems to be triangles just visible.

Could you highlight these for me please?

EoinArmstrong · January 17, 2010, 05:09:44 PM

The shore and ice-flots are well done - I prefer the overall depth in this scene when compared to your previous one. I still have yet to learn about doing stuff like this *sob*

Henry Blewer · January 17, 2010, 05:13:33 PM

I like the way and the look you have achieved for the ice. It looks very promising. Nice work.

Hetzen · January 17, 2010, 07:57:13 PM

Hi Kevin. Have you tried just mixing your two water shaders through surface layers blended by the PF mask used to make the ice shapes on the same lake object? No need to have two water layers. You can also add a little displacement to the ice surface layer to make it rise a little out of the water. I've had a bit of a play here and know the theory works.

Tangled-Universe · January 18, 2010, 01:55:20 AM

Hi Kevin,

I really like this work. The snow, water and ice look quite convincing!

Quote from: Hetzen on January 17, 2010, 07:57:13 PM
Hi Kevin. Have you tried just mixing your two water shaders through surface layers blended by the PF mask used to make the ice shapes on the same lake object? No need to have two water layers. You can also add a little displacement to the ice surface layer to make it rise a little out of the water. I've had a bit of a play here and know the theory works.

That would also be my first approach. However, one advantage of using 2 watershaders is that you can control reflectivity of the ice-patches more easily. In this image I find the ice a bit too much reflective.
The addition of displacement is something really worth trying, great tip from Jon!

Cheers,
Martin

Kevin F · January 18, 2010, 04:38:26 AM

Thanks guys.
@ Hetzen/TU I'm not 100% sure I know what you mean.
My problem is that I don't have a PF generating the ice patches. They're made by merging two water shaders with different wave/roughness values, one for the water and one for the ice. They're then merged and selected by height.

Is this something like what you're suggesting:

Hetzen · January 18, 2010, 06:09:13 AM

I didn't use a merge shader. I used the ice shape pf to blend one surface layer into another, one with 'invert blendshader' switched on, so that it masks the oposite of the other. A nice aspect of this, is that it can make a nice mix between slightly transparent ice or hard edged depending on the contrast used in the PF. I didn't use any of the wave settings, I turned this page all to zero in the node. The water shader ice, I played with the volume density and colour, as well as the decay distance. The below examples were some quick sketches and need a lot of refinement to get to look right, but I believe it quite possible to come up with something very convincing. Be carful on how much you displace the ice surface layer (plugged into the original shape PF), as this did add loads to the render time. Might be worth turning everything else off whilst you refine this technique.

Anyway, hope it's of some use. I might have to play with this some more, time willing.

Cheers

Jon

*** EDIT *** in the node picture layout below, the "Clear Water Surface Layer" should be plugged into the "Ice Surface layer" input. Sorry about that.