realistic water anyone?

[Slynky]

ello. I'm having a crazy time trying to get somewhat realistic water (not photo real or anything). Trying to use a plane 3d tool with some transparency on it, but absolutely no luck with it. I'm a tryin' to place it in a little pond i made. I just couldn't get the transparency working decently on it for it to show some shrubbery beneath it... any ideas? Running 1.23 demo over here btw. Anyways, I'm a newbie to zeeing, so don't be harsh

thanks for any help mates.

ry

[aurick]

Have you made sure to turn Flatten Layers off in the render palette? Transparency won't appear until you do that. Also, transparent objects must be on a different layer from what you're seeing through them. The Best Render mode shows transparency to its fullest. The regular render just gives you an idea of what the final results will be.

Other threads on water are in the QuickLinks.

[Slynky]

i shall give it a try, and damn that was one fast reply... thanks dude.

[Entropy]

Ofer Alon should make a dedicated water shader, like Alias Wavefront did, he he he.

[Slynky]

ok, this is gonna sound dumb, but i really cannot find the flatten layers option in the render pallette... lots of modifiers for fog anvironment etc, but nothing about flatten layers... me thinks thats somewhat key, cuz i finally got a decent water texture goin.... any ideas for the newbie?

[aurick]

It's the large button near the top right of the Render palette, showing a few overlapping layers. It's turned on by default, which means that the layers all render together as one layer. Turning Flatten Layers off means that each layer can have its own light settings, and that things like transparency can take place. But it takes longer to render.

A good approach is to get your water looking right and then turn Flatten Layers back on again while you work on other elements in your image. Then, when you get ready for the final render, turn it back off.

[Slynky]

ok, feelin' really stupid now... found the flatten layers button (right in my face, a "du'h" for me). New problem... cant get the dang water to get transparent. Im prollly waaaay too used to photoshop, and being able to select a part of a layer to work directly with here, but I'm playing with my materials, textures and alpha maps, and can't get the dang green pond to lower in opacity. hopefully the pic will help somewhat... just lookin to add some shrubbery to the ground layer beneath it, and to get the sides of the pond to show a lil bit too... I'm annoyin' ya aren't i? my apologies aurick... but thanks for the help so far dude!

[juandel]

hi, Slynky!

been there, done that here is a summary of what you have to do to make transparency the flatten layers way:

1. create a terrain including bottom of pond
2. create a new layer for the waterplane (dont forget to give it some ripples, in the QuickLinks there are a few tips on how to do so)
3. select another material
4. set its transparency slider to about 91-98
5. activate the layer with the terrain again (golden square plus triangle in upper left corner in layers palette show up)
6. in render settings deselect flatten layers (green button turns grey)
7. press "best render" - now the terrain gets best rendered and stays so.
8. select/activate water surface layer
9. press "best render" once again - now the water layer gets best rendered. it needs a best render for the transparency to show up, at least in v. 1.23

if the pond looks too clear reduce the transparency settings of water material

hope this helps!

- juandel

[Slynky]

that does help a lot actually, thanks man! It doesn't look so good cuz I didn't put a proper terrain beneath the surface, but still, that'll be fixed next time.

strange thing tho, setting the transparency to 100 doesn't make it entirely opaque... could that be because of the original alpha and texture maps (that grain the water has I mean)?

[juandel]

glad i could be of some help. in many cases i confuse others even more, but in this case it seems to have worked as i hoped it would

as for your question: i dunno, might be as you are saying. if i want anything to be 100% opaque i just dont create it just kidding... i think it depends on a combo of transparency, diffuse and, when there is any reflection set in the slider, the reflection graphs. playing with materials is a game without end!

- juandel

[Slosh]

Hi Slynky, and welcome since this is the first I have ever spoken to you. I don't know if you are still interested, or if I am too late, but check out 2 images of mine below, where I did transparent water effects. I love doing them, and would personally wish to put water in all of my pictures (but I don't, of course). Jaundel's description of the how-to is right on the money, as this is how I do my effects. I think there is some detail on how I did this in the links. Any questions, feel free to ask, we're always glad to help!

Garden Fountain
Insomnia

[Mentat7]

Hi Slynky! Seeing as Juandel already posted a very good step by step I will just add that you can use the blur tool with MRGB on and ZAdd on to blur the material a bit to add some surface noise. The following image is done with three layers. The bowl/rocks, the background, the water. Refelection set to 100 with transparency set to 70. Messed with the diffuse graph and specular graph. The bubbles could use a little more work but you get the idea.




Oh look. With all that water my rocks sprouted...

[DeeVee]

Nice Rock still life mentat7 you should do more.
I think you left off an L in bowl
gotcha
DeeVee,
Joe.

[Mentat7]

It was hiding behind the slash...

[DeeVee]

Sure