Making surf with painted shader

Kevin F · April 17, 2009, 05:04:14 AM

Here's a couple of new ones that got me thinking again about making surf/foam by different methods. The painted shader has great potential for this but it takes a lot of trial and error testing.
The first one is without any surf and is still O.K. but the addition of surf greatly improves it I think.
C&C welcome.

Kevin F · April 17, 2009, 05:05:03 AM

and the second one:

inkydigit · April 17, 2009, 07:00:52 AM

I prefer the first one, but the rocks in both are excellent!(as is the water)

rcallicotte · April 17, 2009, 09:42:28 AM

Ooooh. These are cool. Great idea, too. Very fine work. If the ship looked a little more realistic in the second one, this one would be spot-on.

jimjabbo · April 17, 2009, 10:11:06 AM

Both very good pictures but I find that the smaller rock in pic 2 seems to be a tad too sharp..it is unusuak to see sharp rocks near surf an they get smoothed over the millenia..that is the only flaw that I can see..very cool

MacGyver · April 17, 2009, 12:49:30 PM

Very nice pictures!

Quote from: jimjabbo on April 17, 2009, 10:11:06 AM
Both very good pictures but I find that the smaller rock in pic 2 seems to be a tad too sharp..it is unusuak to see sharp rocks near surf an they get smoothed over the millenia..that is the only flaw that I can see..very cool

Perhaps this particular one is only a few thousand years old, who knows?

RArcher · April 17, 2009, 03:29:27 PM

The problem with painting on surf is that unless you are really careful you end up with surf that doesn't match with the waves. You have some surf which does not follow the same angle as the waves and is quite unnatural.

Kevin F · April 18, 2009, 04:22:47 AM

Thanks for the comments folks.
I agree with you Ryan: the placement of the painted shader is crucial and can give false looking waves.
Here's a newer one which is getting better IMO.
Still lots to do.

rcallicotte · April 19, 2009, 09:05:57 AM

This is a better. Nice color on the water, too.

mcmiller · April 19, 2009, 02:00:20 PM

First one is pretty convincing with a lot of roiling water without foam or whitecaps.
The addition of all the wildlife in the last one is a nice touch.

Kevin F · April 22, 2009, 03:35:28 AM

Here's another in this style, this time an attempt at a fast flowing river.
C&C welcome

domdib · April 22, 2009, 06:05:46 AM

It's a good attempt, but I think the problem is that foam has its own particular structure, full of bubbles - it isn't just "white water". I wonder whether one could use clouds (tiny meta-clouds?) in combination with the shader? Or maybe a group of tiny, very transparent spheres?? Or a combination??? Would probably be v hard to position just right, even if they looked convincing.

Kevin F · April 22, 2009, 06:59:56 AM

Quote from: domdib on April 22, 2009, 06:05:46 AM
It's a good attempt, but I think the problem is that foam has its own particular structure, full of bubbles - it isn't just "white water". I wonder whether one could use clouds (tiny meta-clouds?) in combination with the shader? Or maybe a group of tiny, very transparent spheres?? Or a combination??? Would probably be v hard to position just right, even if they looked convincing.

I tried using a very thin low level cloud layer with very small scale values and deliberately poor quality settings to try and achieve the grainy appearance of misty clouds, but with limited success, As you say positioning is also a major problem. Still I'll keep on chooglin'. Thanks for the comments.

jo · April 22, 2009, 11:06:02 PM

Hi,

It should be possible to use the painted shader as a mask to control a more realistic foam type effect made using surface shaders/functions etc. Good effort though! Definitely has potential.

Regards,

Jo

domdib · April 23, 2009, 04:53:25 AM

Yes, but the question is, which surface shaders/functions? Have you any suggestions Jo?