Catch a wave!

[Ziah]

ohh geez this has bin one of the demons of 3d ??? a real wave that crashes and has spray ......i saw the movie so far so good now for the foam...hmm morph or path follow?

[SplineGod]

No morphs. The wave is simply displacements. Im also not using any wind/path emitters. The particles are actually following the crest. It should be pretty easy to make the beach a collision object and do some fancy texture footwork to get it to look foamy and wet. :)

[Ziah]

not bad displacement hmmm interesting ....long have i seen people give up on this detured me from a ocean scene i was going to make long ago when i couldn't find any info on it

[m.d.]

that looks pretty good Larry...
no morphs? i'm curious how you did it
very cool:bowdown:

[SplineGod]

displacement maps :)

[Ziah]

it would indeed be very interesting to see the faom aspect i think that part was more of the challenege for the others based on what i read for alot of others it was the foam getting the waves not to look so geometrical and also keeping the initial water surface following like water that is the ripples conturing to the velocity of the wave ...hmmm this is going to be a good thread if i have sometime i will try to follow and do something as well

hmm maps could you cotrol the contours using d_maps? as well

[SplineGod]

Actually I think the foam will be the easiest part. I did a quickie test to see how hard it would be to do some foam a few weeks ago. You can see it HERE (http://www.3dtrainingonline.com/examples/sea_foam.mov)

[m.d.]

displacement maps

can't give away all the secret's i guess:argh:

[SplineGod]

Displacement maps and....tweaking? :)
Actually the wave itself was very easy to set up plus you can see it in realtime while making adjustments.
Figuring out how to get particles to emit from the wave at the right spot took a bit more brain power :)

[m.d.]

I always get frustrated with tweaking procedurals...
did you tie the procedural to a null and animate that(if that's not too forward:) ) or is it all just tweaking?

[3DDave]

Larry,

That reminds me of the Hydora Campaign from Roughnecks. That was the first episode I saw of Roughnecks and from then on I was up at 5:30 am each morning to watch. I shortly bought my first copy of Lightwave after!

Awesome!!

:drool:

[SplineGod]

md,
No nulls. Most of the motion is done using the ripple displacement.
The trick is to break things down into their component parts and then start adding details.

Dave,
Yea, that was a good episode. :)

[m.d.]

dammit Larry, I have to go to bed early!!!!!

now you got me thinking:banghead:

[SplineGod]

Thinkin and sleepin dont mix :)

[pdrake]

larry, your work is great, so don't take this wrong.

the wave is coming along nicely, but it's not accurate.

it's a "close-out". it looks like it's a good size wave and they don't usually close out unless there is a good amount of wind. most waves break from right to left or left to right.

kind of a progressive thing.

i used to live on the beach and surf and that wave would scare me and keep me out of the water.:)

[SplineGod]

Thats very true. At this stage I was just happy to:
1. Get a wave that curls over.
2. Get particles to follow the displacement and emit from the leading edge.

Based on what Ive seen that can be done I know I can do the following (or reasonable sure I can):
1. Get the wave to break from left to right/right to left and diminish towards either end.
2. Get some spray off the peaks of the waves
3. Get some foam/spray on the beach when the wave hits.

At this stage Im not going for technical accuracy. Mostly its whether it can be done and how far can it be pushed. Once I do that then its time to check Endless Summer to see how waves look :)
Thanks for the comments :)

[pdrake]

"endless summer" is a great movie.

"endless summer II" is almost as good, believe it or not.

pick up a copy of surfer magazine for some nice stills or check out their website.

i'd love a peek at the scene when you're done. i don't think anything i ever do would involve a wave like that, but i'm a die hard ocean/surfer guy. i also have a friend that lives in/on kona that is a lightwave/surfer. i'll have to tell him about this thread.

thanks for not being offended. i'm glad you are a part of this community and i often welcome your advice.

[SplineGod]

lol, no problem. The trick is to never say its a finished piece. ;)

[gerardo]

This is very interesting Larry... :bounce:

Do you use some external modifier that follows the crest as reference for the particles? a target maybe or is the trick inside the PFX?
How can the particles follow the crest of the wave?
It should be something more complex
could you give us just one hint? please!


Gerardo

[SplineGod]

Its all done natively within LW.
basically the same procedurals driving the displacement are also driving the birthrate :)

[gerardo]

WOW Splinegod!!! Do you never sleep? How quick answer man!
(here is 4 am) :)

[ambassador]

interesting stuff, about 2 years back I created a successful 100ft crashing wave with particals, pain in the butt to control though:wip: , sucks I cant show it though, it was pre-vis work.

[LittleFenris]

Originally posted by SILENCERX
You realize you posted an image THIS BAD in public?


I'm astounded you teach others.

Wow 6 posts and already bashing the most helpful users of the forums...welcome to the CGTalk LW forum. :rolleyes: I think you should just NOT POST if it isn't going to be useful or helpful to the topic at hand.

I think Larry posted that as is just to show its possible, after that you start tweaking to get it realistic looking.

And to the teaching comment...Larry is a GREAT teacher with loads of useful information. It's up to the student to take that information and be creative and make use of it. He has taken my skills to new levels just in the short time I've known him.

[SplineGod]

Hey Shaun thanks. :)
Silencers been around awhile hiding. He likes to do this because he has an axe to grind...got his feelings hurt I guess. :shrug:
All his comments always revolve around training....hmmm
T4D pegged it in this thread: http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=109006&perpage=15&pagenumber=2

Anyways the mods will come in eventually to sweep up after him. :rolleyes:

[alanchan]

3

[jdb3D]

2

[Shade01]

This situation is being handled. Please do not pursue this any further on the public boards. Lets stay on topic :)

[angus1965]

2

[Celshader]

Good work, Larry. As usual.

[Ziah]

larry i haven't gotten a chance to do anything on what your doing although i would like to try...anyway my whole thing is how would you go about simulating the contours .i.e the different surfacing of the water cuased by the curling???

....only thing i did along time ago was like a pond (clam water) wave) where there is no curling really and i did this using md ........
took a plane like regular... tweaked the md settings(thanx to Howard M 4 sharing it with the community) at least thats who i learned it from anyway a suppatched planed with md applied and a number of transparent planks as my collison objects moving at different velocities pushing the plane creating different size ripples .....the only thin that was a lttle tricky was placing my emmiters and getting the different ripps to move smoothly in some cases i ended up creating more than one plane to smoothen them out and hide the breaking but it wasn't that hard it looked okay i would guess i'll see if i could find it for anyone who is interested but im sure one of of advanced users did this already....but i really want to see what larry is doing develop

Im just a noob trying to learn

[LWD]

Originally posted by 3DDave
Larry,

That reminds me of the Hydora Campaign from Roughnecks. That was the first episode I saw of Roughnecks and from then on I was up at 5:30 am each morning to watch. I shortly bought my first copy of Lightwave after!

Awesome!!

:drool:

Nice to hear from a Roughnecks fan! Even though I was supervising on the show I still got up at 4:30am to watch 'em too!
I think a lot of us did, ha ha. Hydora was the second story arc and it started in episode 6. Most all the episodes are available on DVD now, which is really rare for a one season series...

oh yeah...

1

BOOM!

:wip:

-Dave Adams
IROBOT/Digital Domain

[SplineGod]

Hey Jen! Thanks. :)

Ziah,
Theres several ways of controlling the contours. I can have the displacment fall off towards one or both ends. The colors and other attributes can be done starting with textures that change the surface based on height. On top of that the same textures used to displace can also be blended on top of that using one of the several blend modes.

[Ziah]

cool on a tute i saw for umm forgot what program it was but they control some of the surfacing effects that would happen with velocity by the size or mesh in certain areas if that make any sense :shrug: ..hmm best way i can describe it.... anyway so u would use dsiplcament maps for the contours and it would flow from one surface to the next smoothly???

[Keiyentai]

:bowdown: :bowdown: Once again I am amazed by your work Larry. Cant wait to see everything complete man.

[SplineGod]

Thanks Keiy! :)

Ziah
Thats an interesting idea. Controlling the color or other attributes based on velocity would definately be useful. Do you remember where the tutorial is? Displacement maps only effect objects rather then surfaces. The exception is bump displacement.
Displacments can also be done as normal displacements, morphs and can be effected by textures and weight maps.

[angus1965]

Not that it was done in LW, but look at the latest "Day After Tomorrow" trailer. Or better yet - go see the movie when it comes out.

Best cg water I have seen to date - going thru NYC to boot!

[Ziah]

hey what did they use in that moive?? i swore they used realflow but if they did thats not the issue trying to see what we could do with our product and what it offers out of the box

[chrisJackson]

here is a wave a made in 3ds max (lost the file now :(
the spray was done in post (pS), I am VERY interested in 'barrelling' or 'curling' wave animation and dynamics.

[lwgal]

Beautiful work! :bounce:

I had a wave going back in the old Inspire 3D where I had my colors based entirely on how high my wave was and although I couldn't get it to crash over at the time, it was a fun experiment to do. I didn't get quite so far as the spray at that time though....

Can't wait to see the final of this!

[Nicodemus]

Larry,

The wave looks great....but I am not seeing the particles emitting from the leading edge. Or I am just blind?

Either way....loving the possibilities.

~L~

[SplineGod]

I didnt render an animated test with the particles. I was able to make the particles emit from the leading edge of the wave.

[angus1965]

Here's a wave for you:

http://www.thedayaftertomorrowmovie.com/site/us/downloads/desktops/index.php?file=multimedia/gallery/photography_4.jpg

Or this one:

http://www.thedayaftertomorrowmovie.com/site/us/downloads/desktops/index.php?file=multimedia/gallery/photography_5.jpg

Or, if you like tornados:

http://www.thedayaftertomorrowmovie.com/site/us/downloads/desktops/index.php?file=multimedia/gallery/photography_1.jpg

[E_Moelzer]

Awesome work Randy!
So you did use LW on these shots?
Wanna share how you did it?
CU
Elmar

[angus1965]

Originally posted by E_Moelzer
Awesome work Randy!
So you did use LW on these shots?
Wanna share how you did it?
CU
Elmar

I did not have a hand in the creation of the water effects. While I was part of the modeling team - I did work on the New York team to generate the cg city.

The water was simulated using software that was written here at DD - and thus is a proprietary system. Rendering was done with a propriitary voxel rendering system and Houdini.

The bulk of the modeling was done in Maya.

I did model a news helicopter (An Astar 350 - which also appears in Looney Tunes: Back in action. It ws the black one in the Paris sequence. It was textured/surfaced by someone else) that appears in the LA tornado sequence. That was modeled primarily in Maya, but it also got some work done to it in Lightwave.

[E_Moelzer]

Ahh, ok...
We were looking into doing some water/voxel- sims here too (as a plugin for LW), but we never got arround doing it.
No time and not a payed job (there was some talk about a job where we could have needed it once, but it never came to happen, as the customer went with miniatures instead).
Would have been fun though to see what we can get going with the system, that we had in mind.
Well, maybe we will get back to doing it one day...
In this light I am even more interested in what Larry can do use the default LW.
CU
Elmar

[Ziah]

suppose there was a script/plugin or a way where u could create waves ...from regular displacments to more elabarote where they was atcually barelling curling etc and u could control iall of these apects with velocity speed andd height size of barrels and u guys just din't know about it :applause:

[SplineGod]

Then we would hope someone who knew about such a script would be kind enough to share its location. :)

[angus1965]

Originally posted by E_Moelzer
Ahh, ok...
We were looking into doing some water/voxel- sims here too (as a plugin for LW), but we never got arround doing it.
No time and not a payed job (there was some talk about a job where we could have needed it once, but it never came to happen, as the customer went with miniatures instead).
Would have been fun though to see what we can get going with the system, that we had in mind.
Well, maybe we will get back to doing it one day...
In this light I am even more interested in what Larry can do use the default LW.
CU
Elmar

Creating a water sim is not a small undertaking; which I am sure you fully understand.

One of the inherent problems with using miniatures, with no digital enhancements, is the lack of small scale. Because the miniature is just that - a miniature - the small details that are present during the shoot appear as medium to large details when viewed in it's final form. Because of this, there is no fine spray - unless you layer in other elements (practical or digital) in the comp.

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