Hi!
Just started a new project and got this funny result by trying to add a river as surface shader.
The riverbed seemed not to be "filled" with water...it looks more than the water shader/water colour/water surface shader) is a thin layer on the ground and forms a, well, funnel.
Any idea why or how this can happen?
Aenea
It is sort of cool, but by "funnel" do you mean how it seems shallow on the edges and deeper in the middle? Maybe I'm not seeing it. Looks like a cool result from experimenting, though.
The reason is that the watershader is applied directly to the heightfield, if you are using an image map shader to place your river you can use the same image map in conjunction with a displacement shader to modify just the heightfield where the water is, in essence giving it a different surface. In the image sharing section there is a thread called rivers with a bit more info. SeerBlue
@calico: it appears to be deeper in the middle, yes, like gorge-formed? you´re right, it looks somehow cool......
@seer blue: hmm, I´m not sure at the moment what you mean...are you come from that I used the "make river" option? If, I didn´t use that. I only generated a highfield and chose the river as surface layer, restricted by altitude etc. I put a water shader on it, that´s right. Have to check if that what you wrote match what I have done, but I am not sure. I attach the tgd. maybe someone has time and is up to , to take a look at it, it doesn´t hurry....no prob.
Aenea
okay...I give up....
any idea how I get this damn river a normal looking appearance? Nice water, nice luminosity/reflectivity?
Think I am too dumb to get it work (normally I should...I know.....)...it´s Sunday, maybe that´s the reason.... :-[
Thanks for any HELP!!!!
Aenea
You need a flat surface for your river to get the expected appearance. It looks the way it does because "water" is just another surface type, like a regular Surface Layer or Image Map Shader. All it does is provide reflectivity and basic wave shapes. It doesn't "fill" the terrain and has no volume. It applies like a decal, essentially. So it's up to you to apply it to an object or area that is "water-like" - in other words flat. Because you haven't flattened the terrain in this area prior to applying the Water Shader you just get something that looks like the terrain you had before, but reflective and with slight waves.
So basically you need to find a way to make the area of your river flat in the terrain. The easiest way to do this is just use the Lake object in the Water layout, but that creates a large area of flat water and it may cover areas in water that you don't want covered. You could then use a Default Shader and Opacity mask to restrict its placement. Alternatively you could mess with displacement to try to flatten the river area, but that may be trickier.
- Oshyan
dear Oshyan!
Thanks for your so very useful help!
I added a lake and surprisingly it was very easy to let it follow the meant riverbed.
But the idea with the default shader and the opacity mask is very useful too...I keep that in mind for another project!!!!!!!!!
Thanks so much!
Aenea
could you turn on smoothing in the surface layer properties? Wouldn't that then fake the filling up of water?
If I had done this the whole terrain would have been affected, it would have turned out too flat then....but otherwise this would surely have been a solution, yes.