First off, thanks to Dune and Nikita for offering up their wave generation mechanisms in the NWDA store. Both were well worth the few dollars I spent to purchase them.
I combined Dune's zoned-beach approach with Nikita's sin generated shore-facing waves. Then I wrote a set of animating parameters for both and purged the stuff I didn't need. I consider this piece to contain an equal amount of effort between the three of us. This is the very first test render I completed last night. Yes, there are some timing issues. Yes, there are lots of things to work on. As a proof-of-concept, though, I'd say it just works.
The waves are entirely procedural. Their frequency, height, speed, forward "crashing", and distance from shore that they start can all be controlled somewhat independently. The waves follow the shoreline in a damped fashion. The damping amount is also controllable, in addition to how parallel the wave line is to the shore. I found the damping was necessary due to the fact that waves don't cling perfectly to the shape of the shore. They are influenced by the decreasing height of the sea floor beneath them, so I had to tone down the shoreline effect.
The next steps are to vary the breaker line subtly over distance to make it more irregular (should be easy). Then make the foam movement more apparent, also easy. Then experiment with adding more foam displacement. Then see if I can do anything about keeping some foam on shore at the high point of the breakers. I may just make that static. Then add some of dandelO's awesome caustics (animated, of course). After that, I'll drop my objects into the scene and send it back to the farm.
So, is this the first animated shore waves in TG2? No one else seems to have done it here on the forums.
Vimeo link:
http://vimeo.com/36070296
