Water's Color

Started by choronr, July 13, 2008, 12:18:28 AM

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choronr

For reasons not worth the space explaining here, I'm still using 'alpha 2' but will be installing 'alpha 4' next week. My question is: How do you color the water? My scene is a small river in a canyon. For the most part, the water is blue reflecting the sky. Since this is a red rock canyon, I want to make the water more of a 'greenish brown'. Your suggestions on this would be appreciated.

Bob

Oshyan

Just connect a shader that provides color (Default Shader, Power Fractal, Surface Layer being the main ones) *between* the water shader and the "Lake" shader, or to put it more generally, put your color-providing shader *after* the water shader in your surface or water/lake network. You would connect the water Output to the color-providing shader's Input.

- Oshyan

choronr

Oshyan, thank you for the information. I believe I've got a good one going; and, this will help put the icing on the cake.

Matt

Oshyan, your suggestion would cause the colour shader to completely obscure the water's reflections, transparency etc., making the water shader redundant. The correct way to add some colour to the Water Shader in Tech Preview 3 and above is to use its subsurface parameters. You give it some volumetric density, by increasing Volume 1 Density, and then choose Volume 1 colour.

Matt
Just because milk is white doesn't mean that clouds are made of milk.

Oshyan

He specified he was using TP2. I assumed he understood that in TP3+ the new water controls would be the way to specify color. However I did accidentally reverse the appropriate shader order since I was working with the current alpha to test, and of course now that the water shader provides colour, it doesn't work to put to have your colour-providing shader as the input of the water node.

To reiterate the correct approach pre-tp3, you would connect a colour-providing shader to the *input* of the water node, so it would be *before* the water node, not after it.

- Oshyan

rcallicotte

 ;D  Wow, now this is getting interesting. 

"...now that the water shader provides colour..." - Is this something different than the latest version I'm using? 
So this is Disney World.  Can we live here?

Oshyan

Assuming you are using the latest version, no it is not different. TP4's water shader provides color, "Volume 1 colour" and "Decay tint".

- Oshyan

rcallicotte

Okay.  Thought I was missing out.   ;D  I love this water shader, by the way.
So this is Disney World.  Can we live here?

choronr

I just downloaded alpha 4 and noted that the water shader has two 'Volume 1 density/Volume 1 colour' settings. I assume I use the one that uses the sliders for the settings after I set them. Is this correct? I made changes to the first settings with no change.

Bob

Oshyan

Quote from: choronr on July 17, 2008, 12:40:13 AM
I just downloaded alpha 4 and noted that the water shader has two 'Volume 1 density/Volume 1 colour' settings. I assume I use the one that uses the sliders for the settings after I set them. Is this correct? I made changes to the first settings with no change.
Bob

Change Volume 1 Color and increase Volume 1 Density.

- Oshyan

choronr

Thanks Oshyan. I did try it and it looks well with the right settings. Its another desert scene. The water is slightly muddy with good transparency.