Surf (again)

[Dune]

Tried a totally different setup, with a coastal gradient derived from a basic perlin terrain, then smoothed the lows into a sea plane (so it's all one layer), and used some math to get the waves up, and then towards the coast. I still need to take some obstacles, though.
Don't look at the terrain, it's still quite horrible, and added at the end (height restricted).

[WAS]

Looks like it's working much better this time around. Though the waves may be a little bunched?

[Dune]

Yes, I agree. That's one of the things I need to attack.

Here's two more versions, for the few interested    This time I put all the surf, up to the edge of the foam, on a water plane (so it can be transparent), and matched it exactly with the beach, which is on the planet. At least that works, though the last foam edge still needs to match the shine on sand. Now I'm struggling to get surf/rollers even with low waves, and trouble mixing water shader with some translucency in the wave tops, as I like the sun to shine through the water, and that doesn't work with the standard water shader (test 4). And a combination default shader and reflective shader gives me some too dark wave edges (test 5), so I'm not finished yet.

[WAS]

I like the first of the two new ones. Maybe a little more breakup in the surf foam, but it looks very good for the shapes and offset for the most part. Definitely coming along very nicely.

[Hannes]

What Jordan said. Otherwise already fantastic!

[Dune]

Yes, that's another issue. Rendering a new version now. Even without a water shader it takes long, so now I remember again why I don't like to work on water

EDIT: there you have it; 5.5 hours, no soft shadows and default renderer. Back to my Neanderthals again...

[WAS]

I think if you take your water displacements and run it through heightfield gen, save it, and load it, you'll have much faster rendering water as it's not computing all the disp with the water detail, plus reflections and all that.

[Hannes]

That looks amazing!! What's that vertical thing in the waves?

[mhaze]

Brilliant!

[WAS]

That looks amazing!! What's that vertical thing in the waves?

It's a bird in a high bank turn. Easier to see in v2-test 5

[Hannes]

Ah, I hadn't noticed that before. I thought it might have been be an eel trying to jump out of the water...

[WAS]

Ah, I hadn't noticed that before. I thought it might have been be an eel trying to jump out of the water...

And just like that,  the little mermaid theme came to mind...

[DocCharly65]

Ah, I hadn't noticed that before. I thought it might have been be an eel trying to jump out of the water...

Yes it's a bit an unlucky angle. But great water!

[Dune]

Yeah, the albatros wasn't placed very nicely. I might try saving the displacements and importing, see if that's true. But I don't really like these workarounds. And the extra time mainly comes from smaller displacements in the waves that I put in at the last moment to give the breaking some more wildness.

The handy thing from this is that the surf works everywhere. But it's pretty tricky to get it right.

[Jo Kariboo]

Very nice work again!