DA Big Ocean needs instructions.
frankrblow
Posts: 2,052
in The Commons
DA Big Ocean needs instructions.
This product: https://www.daz3d.com/da-big-ocean looks great, but it should come with some kind of step by step instruction, because it's not very intuitive, for me at any rate.
Right now, I'm using trial and error to find my way around it, but it really needs instructions. I have tens of thousands of products in my runtimes, and many of them use decals, but they are all different in how you apply the decals, making it impossible to remember how each one works.
There are acouple of hints in its page in my Product Library, but it's confusing. A little help, please, for us oldies?
Comments
Sure happy to help, Let me know any questions you may have.
Primarily DA Big Ocean is a set of shaders to simulate a realistic looking ocean.
To get Started:
Load the main DA Big Ocean Scene Subset.
Depending on your default Render settings you will need to apply one of the included light/render presets or apply the Ground Setting preset when using the DS default Render settings or any other Render preset.
Change your Viewport settings to Iray preview mode.
The default load should look something like below.
Thanks, DA, I got that far, now I just need to sort out the decals. There's the 'Add Decals - Foam and Wake' folder, and another folder for 'Decal Full Sea - Shader Presets'; I'm guessing the full presets need to be added before the foam/wake?
Edit: Our posts overlapped And that worked a charm. Thanks!
You can stack the Decals prop items onto the main 'DA Big Ocean Sea Plane' prop from the 'Add Decals - Foam and Wake' folder, these are a full Decal prop and will project directly onto the Main ocean surface.They need to be parented to the the main ocean prop by either selecting it before loading or dragging on to it in the Scene tab to be visible. You can stack as many of these onto the main prop as you like (Well, I never ran into any limits with 10+ stacked so far). These decals project water effects such as wave froth or boat wakes.
The "Decal Full Sea - Shader Presets" are primarily for use on the large decal that preloads with the main ocean subset - 'DA Big Ocean - Full Sea Iray Decal'. This Decal stretches the full ocean length and the shaders in this folder will add extra frequency, Refraction details and white water to the full ocean.
That's great, pls let me know if there is anything else that comes up :)
Okay, I can have fun with this now. Though it would be nice to have information like this as a ReadMe (hint, hint). And thanks again!
Edit to add the first render, even though it needs a lot of work (scaling and positioning of decal nodes, etc).
Thats an awesome render.
Thanks, Paintbox. Anything good about it is thanks to the creators of the products
Hey Design Anvil! This looks wonderful. My question is this, is there any way to simulate movement in the water or the different waves and such? I don't know how set the decals all are in terms of being customizable once they're loaded onto a scene. Thanks for any info!
I see that the shaders can be used with a different prop, which is great, as I have five or six older sea-surface models that are 3DL or Poser only. However, it doesn't say anything about the prop decals being universal so... are they? And, if so, could they be applied over a different water shader?
The render looks great, but shouldn't the below-waterline part of the ship not be visible? There's a critical angle between the camera viewpoint angle and the water surface, beyond which light is completely reflected instead of part reflected, part refracted. I'm fairly sure the camera angle in that render is shallow enough that the below-waterline view ought to be completely reflected back down off the water surface.
And the same goes, of course, if the camera is below the water — all you'd see would be the keel, the top of the ship would be invisible or massively distorted.
... or have I hit on a limitation of Iray?
Most of the appearance of the water is shader based, so any animation would need to be done through the surface tab. Things like adjusting the displacement and nornal heights to be higher and lower to simulate waves, and adjusting the scaling and position over time may give some decent results. However the product and shader are primarily designed for still renders so I haven't really tested or optimised for animation,
The decals included are a standard Iray Decal and will work with any prop when parented to it.
I have a feeling the render above may have one of the decal shaders applied to the main ocean surface, as the Full Sea Decal Shaders use an oppacity map to show the ocean surface below it on the main ocean. The main ocean shaders use only refraction with no oppacity settings to create the water transparency. It's hard to say for sure but I never experienced that effect during testing.
If you are both referring to my image (sailing ship), it is possible I applied the wrong decal to the ocean surface, but I thought I only used the 'Full Sea Decals' there. Then again, I was playing around a lot, so it's certainly possible I applied a wake decal to the ocean at some point.
On another matter, when would you use the 'Set Ground Height Preset'?
By default the visible ground in DS render settings is set to 0, you will notice the ground is visible where displacement pushes the water level below this level when loading the base ocean. The preset sets the ground level to -1000. You can turn the ground visibilty off completely through render presets but the water looks a lot better with a visible ground to stop light coming through from underneath the surface. This preset should work with most existing presets such as HDRI presets or any render preset that shows the ground above parts of the water surface.
With the base load there are three surfaces the Main Ocean Surface and the Front and Back of the DA Big Ocean - Full Sea Iray Decal when using the Decal Full Sea - Shader presets make sure the Front Surface of the Full decal is selected and not the main water Ocean Surface. I could of made these materials that would only work on the correct surface for ease of use, but this would make it more difficult to use them with other props. So I settled with Shaders over materials.
P.S You are right about the Readme also
Here is the same render above with just the Full Sea Decal changed to a new shader.
Good to know! Thanks.
I would be curious to see what these shaders looked like on an animated water, while I realise that they are static decals on something like the https://www.daz3d.com/ireal-animated-ocean-water-system and maybe using Casual's matanim to change offsets it could be interesting
I'll pick this up this weekend and give it a try and if the animation works, I'll post it here!
The one thing that had me foxed for a time was that the Ocean rendered in stripes. Eventually the penny dropped, and I disabled the "Draw Ground" option in the Enviroment tab. The other thing is that I expected the shaders to apply to the object, whereas they apply to the surface.
It is looking good, but no renders as yet.
@Valkeerie "The other thing is that I expected the shaders to apply to the object, whereas they apply to the surface."
Technically, shaders always apply to a surface. Materials apply to the object. Not to imply that the terms aren't occasionally used as synonyms.
I'm really have fun with it so far - awesome work, DA!
Quick question: I've only used your Sun-Sky settings so far - are there any tips for using HDRIs (like Skies of Radiance or something similar)?
Hi Valkeerie,
It is better to lower the ground using the Ground preset included or to manually move it on the Y axis if you prefer, rather than turning it off. Without the ground plane you may need a physical mesh in the scene at the bottom of the ocean. When the ground is disabled light enters your scene from 360 including the from underneath the ocean surface which may make the ocean appear lighter and and little washed out.
Looks great!
When using HDR's for lighting it is generally best to setup your scene using a sun and sky render setting and then apply a HDRI lighting preset once the scene is pretty near to finished. As HDRI lighting tends to be a little more intensive with the Iray preview render making the scene slow down a little. Their are two main settings when working with a lighting dome the first is the Ground Origin Y which you may need to lower until the ground is completely under the water surface. The second is the Dome Radius which generaly needs to be increased by quite a large amount to extend the dome region further out into the ocean and help to raise the horizon of the dome.
Awesome - thank you so much for your help! :)
I seem to be having a similar problem but turning off Draw Ground simply turns my sea into a greyer shade of blue.
There is a near-vertical seam running through the render about a third of the way from the left.
Any thoughts, anyone?
Cheers,
Alex.
It looks like it could be a bit of a seam showing in one of the texture maps, do you know which of the presets you were using here, as I have been unable to reproduce it so far? Does it disappear if you hide the Full sea decal or is the line on the main sea plane?
DA,
The problem is with the DA Big Ocean 4 Carribean shader. I've been experimenting with several of the other shaders and they don't seem to show the problem.
Removing the full sea decal seems to make it worse, the line is on the main sea plane.
Thanks,
Alex.
Thanks Alex,
I had a look and there is a small visible seam on one of the normal maps. You can download a file update at the below link while I see what I can do about an official update which may take a little while due to the holidays. Thanks for locating this and hope your happy with the Ocean set other than this small issue.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/icpod0tsosqbfpj/DAWaterNorm7.tif?dl=0
Just replace the original file with this amended version in the texture folder > DAOceansTextures
All the best for the holidays