VFX - Stormy Ocean
 

I started working on a stormy ocean project. Here's some early particle experiment of the crest mist effect. Let me know what do you think of the motion and behaviour of the particles.

Darn. I downloaded it, but it says I need something for Quicktime. This thing I need apparently isn't even available on the QT server of download. Oh well.

Thats a cool looking effect. :cool:

very nice. is that the tutorial from Secrets of the Pros?

Darkware: It's compressed with DivX 5.02. You can get the codec here: http://www.divx.com/divx/

3djoe: Thanks. I'm not 100% happy with it though yet. There's just so many variables affecting everything ;)

ereitz: Yes, I used some principles from the book...

It is so dark...

Here's another version. I like this one better. What do you think?

loogs good for tempest like :)

I like the first one better
The second one seems to linger in the lower left of the screen to much.

It would depend though on the scene

just my 2 cents:cool:

Yeah, the lower left of the second isn't going to look like that in the final scene 'cause the mist is going to be emitted from the top of the crests rather than from a stationary location. I think I have all the necessary controls for the mist. Now I have to figure out how to create the actual ocean and how to emit the particles properly...

so your going to make waves and have that as the spray am i reading this right cause i d/l'd it and it looked nice for spray if that's what it is

That's a cool looking effect.

mumbo: yes, you understood right (i think ;)) :)

Hey KB

Your stuff is coming along very well. I can't wait to see the finished work looks amazing bud!

My progress on this is going to slow down tomorrow 'cause my holidays are over :( Going to continue on this one though but slowly...

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Still experimenting with different techniques. This is supposed to be the baseFoam that will float on the sea surface. The actual crestMist will be emitted from these particles.

WOW. that is great stuff. Your particles are coming a long way.

wow! cool! my only thought is one I usually have when watching ocean scenes done in maya - the waves don't seem as heavy as they could be - could having them move a little slower make them seem more powerful?

I'm not concentrating on the looks so much at this point. I'm trying to figure out the techniques that I will use in my final scene. Thanks for the input anyway. I'll take a note of this...

baseFoam and the crestMist (168 kB)

Damn this is time consuming. Finally I'm begining to feel I'm on the right track. C & C please :)

Kbrown
That looks great!:p

KB: Continues to look killer! I'm wondering, though....shouldn't the crest spray blow towards the positive z-axis also? It seemed like the spread of the mist wasn't covering all the waves. Like it wasn't blowing from the dark, frontmost wave, only a thin stream above the waves in the back. Maybe it's just the perspective of the render?

It also looks like it's emitting from one point on the crest (like smoke coming from a cigarette or something) but in a real storm, wouldn't the spray be blowing from the entire surface....crests and trough. Perfect storm has been on all weekend...I should've take a closer look.

The crestMist is emitted from the baseFoam with an initial upward velocity. From there the wind takes over and blows it away. Changing the wind direction would have an effect on the looks. I'll do some more tests. I'm still trying to find out a better method to control which of the waves gets the mist treatment.

It can't all be particles. It would kill my pc :). The size of the particle disk cache for that shot was about 1.7GB. I had one run which generated over 13GB disk cache. Maya wasn't very interactive after that :D. Maybe I could split the different types of foam and mist in different scenes and composite afterwards. But first I want to fine tune what I already have. It's like controlling chaos :).

Thanks for the comments though. I got some new ideas to try :).

I lifted the particles to the shelf until I get some über idea for controlling them better. Started experimenting with the sea shader instead. Here's an early version:

Looks awesome, KB. Did you end up using the shader from the tut I sent you?

Nitro: No, I didn't like it. I created my own by combining bits and pieces from various shaders. Let's see how this works animated...

Oh, almost forgot. I re-rendered the previous (particle) scene from different angle just to see what I would look like. Here it is:
http://kotisivu.mtv3.fi/karppa/anim/...Mist2_divx.zip

awesome mr brown awesome!

Yeah, I got part-way through their shader but it didn't look right to me.

I think I like the previous clip better. In this one, the spray looks good towards the end...the smaller choppy waves (turbulance) looks kind of strange at start in that perspective. One thing I thought of was how wicked the newer clip would look with a sand shader...would be cool for a desert sandstorm ala "The Mummy." Still looks awesome dude. Keep on it! Would love to check out your shader network at some point.

--pete

Thanks dudes. I think I'll run a little longer simulation so I can render a scene where the storm has already developed properly. The sand idea is great. Have to test it some day :)

Recreated the shader using only 3D textures. Here's an animated test. Still not quite there yet. I think the foam stuff is "living" too much (and I don't currently have any idea how to correct that).

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looking nice
you'll get there man :D

Finally got the shader working the way I wanted. Not sure about the look though. Comments would be appreciated 'cause I've been looking at this too long :)

http://kotisivu.mtv3.fi/karppa/anim/tsoComp1_divx.zip (574kB)

Dude that is one kickass piece of animation. I love how everything just flows. Mist looks awesome. Who render intensive is this stuff?

nice kman now all you need is the lil rubby dingy floating around but looking real nice :D

Thanks roach. I don't know how long exactly it took to run the particle simulation and the hardware render of them 'cause no logs were generated for them. I just left my comp crunching them over night. The software rendering of the actual sea took 03:25:15 (hh:mm:ss) to render 300 frames.

Still not happy with the shader. It look too plastic imo...

It looked great! But you still need to work on the shader. The mist looked amazing. The animation seem like it was going in slow motion though.

Renamed the thread and started modeling fishing vessel which I'm putting in the scene (needed a break from the ocean stuff).

Just a small update.

Got bored modeling the ship. Went back to the ocean shader tweaking. Any better? (not trying to bore you too :))