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Where am I going wrong with waterfall

tdrdtdrd Posts: 0
edited December 1969 in Bryce Discussion

Now I am trying to build a scene and there are several problems.

I will TRY and post the BR7 file here aswell, it may or may not let me do this... NOPE IT WILL NOT! Dash!
How can I let people access my BR7 file then???? Hmmm!

The problems are getting the waterfall to look realistic.

I went through a tutorial oin the web and found my waterfalls look a bit rigid.

I just can not get the water on this waterfall to go white.

Also I am having problems using the M Materials tools with the three windows and A to D.

I just cannot get the rushing water texture just right.

So if anyone has tips after seeing what a fool I am making of myself then I'd really appreciate it.

Thanks

Comments

  • Dave SavageDave Savage Posts: 2,433
    edited December 1969

    Presuming you've set up your scene so that the water is a totally separate terrain object.
    Also presuming you have the 'Pro Materials' from David Brinnen in your material library.

    I'm rendering a 6 hour pic at the moment so can't access my library to give exact details, but in the pro materials, there is a library called "waters" or "water and ice", there are several in there you can chose that will work well on waterfalls and you most likely won't need to go into the DTE (the window with the A through to D boxes), you'll get a good result from just tweaking the ambient, transparency and bump.

    If you want to share the Bryce file, you'll have to find an external site that will host it and then post a link here, but be aware that in many instances, this will be against the Licence Agreement you agreed to when you installed Bryce and may get you into trouble.

  • Dave SavageDave Savage Posts: 2,433
    edited December 1969

    I see now another problem. Your waterfall face is actually the sheer side of your terrain object.
    You should really use the Terrain Editor to create the (near) vertical face, then you can use different brush effects to make the water ripple more or less how you want it to.

    Waterfall-Bridge2.jpg
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  • HoroHoro Posts: 10,124
    edited December 1969

    Waterfall - water is mostly transparent but has a higher refraction index than air. It depends very much on the angle the light hits it. This can nicely be seen in TheSavage64 waterfall and tdrd's waterfall is essentially in the shadow.

  • ChoholeChohole Posts: 33,604
    edited September 2012

    Waterfalls are an obsession of mine, and I have found that each waterfall had needed a different material, depending on it's placement in the scene, and the way the light is falling, as Horo says.

    If I want to make a complicated waterfall I often use Symlats as well as terrain objects to build it up, or will have to or 3 layers of terrain objects, each a duplicate of the previous, but moved a thiny tad up and outwadrs and then with areas erased and a different mat put onto the 2nd layer.

    This is an old one, done in Br5 Bryce 7 has so many more materials it should be a lot easier.

    early_one_morning.jpg
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    Post edited by Chohole on
  • HoroHoro Posts: 10,124
    edited December 1969

    Beautiful scene, Pam, really.

  • FirstBastionFirstBastion Posts: 7,330
    edited December 1969

    I have to say, I also have a special affinity for waterfalls, so I concur, the way your light source is positioned and hits the polygons making up the water component of the falls is fundamentally important as much as the choice of materials. Experiment moving the lights around.

  • mermaid010mermaid010 Posts: 5,001
    edited December 1969

    Wow both scenes by The Savage and Chohole are awesome. I love waterfalls too, but haven't tried to do one yet.


    TheSavage64 said:
    I see now another problem. Your waterfall face is actually the sheer side of your terrain object.
    You should really use the Terrain Editor to create the (near) vertical face, then you can use different brush effects to make the water ripple more or less how you want it to.

    It will be cool, if you could post a screen shot of the Terrain Editor of the waterfalls you painted, it will give us, newbies an idea how to go about it.

  • ChoholeChohole Posts: 33,604
    edited December 1969

    This was a quick demo I did for someone a while back. Quite lo res, and a simplistic waterfall. Material was just for demot, so it showed up well.

    waterfall_demo_screen_2.jpg
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    waterfall_demo_screen.jpg
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    waterfall_demo_image.jpg
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  • Dave SavageDave Savage Posts: 2,433
    edited December 1969

    mermaid010 said:
    It will be cool, if you could post a screen shot of the Terrain Editor of the waterfalls you painted, it will give us, newbies an idea how to go about it.

    Mine was a lot more simple than Chohole's

    All I did was to create a new blank terrain.
    Use the plain brush (at a large size) to make the top side white (high) with a decent enough fall off.
    Then using the "eroded" filter until the ripples look about right(ish).

    Then I squashed the terrain in my scene until it fitted nicely into the groove I'd cut out of the main terrain.
    A stretched sphere at the base of the waterfall with a plasma material applied gives the foam/splash effect.

    Picture-9.jpg
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  • David BrinnenDavid Brinnen Posts: 3,136
    edited December 1969

    Beautiful work, both Pan and Dave. I found waterfalls a real challenge. Half the time the water ends up looking "frozen". The issue is, I reckon, one of perception. We observe waterfalls as a dynamic thing, they have a sense of movement and that is the residing impression they leave upon us. A high speed snapshot of a waterfall, does not convey that impression. What is needed is to achieve a sort of time lapse effect within your render. Which is tricky... Waterfalls, like rain and snow are, for the reason of the dynamic nature, one of the hardest things to achieve in a still image. I recommend looking at lots of images of waterfalls and considering which gives you the best impression of the effect and trying to recreate that effect rather than the physical reality (which for most rendering applications is the most reliable approach).

  • mermaid010mermaid010 Posts: 5,001
    edited December 1969

    Thanks Chohole and Savage for the images. Much appreciated.

  • tdrdtdrd Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    How does one make a waterfall trickle instead of gush?

    My waterfall looks very square also where the water goes from the plane to the vertical - all water has unevenness as it topples over the edge.
    My waterfall looks reasonable but not what I am after... i'd prefer a broken spray as it comes down. The water spreading out as it goes down..
    It's too uniform.
    i've posted this picture in another topic but it's my first attempt.
    You see what I mean about the waterfall - it is too fast flowing for me...

    rocky.jpg
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  • ChoholeChohole Posts: 33,604
    edited December 1969

    If you check Screen shot 10 on my images above, you will see I have erased some of the terrain, so that it is would appear as trickles rather than a full flow.

  • Dave SavageDave Savage Posts: 2,433
    edited December 1969

    tdrd said:
    How does one make a waterfall trickle instead of gush?

    My waterfall looks very square also where the water goes from the plane to the vertical - all water has unevenness as it topples over the edge.
    My waterfall looks reasonable but not what I am after... i'd prefer a broken spray as it comes down. The water spreading out as it goes down..
    It's too uniform.
    i've posted this picture in another topic but it's my first attempt.
    You see what I mean about the waterfall - it is too fast flowing for me...

    See mine and Chohole's posts above.
    It depends how complex you want to get.

    You can use many layers and add foam, spray and ripples as the water hits the plunge pool. :)

  • David BrinnenDavid Brinnen Posts: 3,136
    edited December 1969

    tdrd, if you think you can learn by taking scenes apart, although that is not really a beginners skill, considering the progress you have made already, then perhaps consider - on this sale day - http://www.daz3d.com/shop/bryce-pro-landscapes-3-falls is only a few dollars.

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