How to do realistic water?

Gaieus

Hi Giuseppe,

Note that the image you linked was only "modelled" with SU - all the "photorealistic" effects (including and especially the water waves and reflection) was made in an external rendering application.

All that SU has are flat faces (no waves - unless you model them), plain Sunshine OR shadow (not bouncing/reflecting light) etc.

You can either start learning a rendering software (not that hard actually) or even use Sqirlz Reflection which is indeed a nifty software!

GdBTM

I'm a noob, I'm sorry but I don't understand...what's the turbulance mesh? Is it a tool in sketchup?

Gaieus

You can see two kinds of waves there; some bigger ones and the small ones on the very surface of the water (this is sort of "average looking" everywhere on the water).

Now the first, big waves were modelled (given some unevenness to) with the sandbox tools in SketchUp while the small ones are just a visual effect (not modelled) added by the rendering software I was talking about above.

sepo

Turbulance mesh is not a tool . It is deformed mesh which could be used with tools such sandbox. If you use render engine than you might get away by simply using using bump. I suggest easiest way would be using squirls.
Ok Gai you were quicker

MALAISE

Hi All
Thanks for the tricks, specially Xrok 1 for the link

MALAISE

zeeshan

I am trying to model a surface using Sandbox, then i "subdivide and smooth" it. and then when i apply material to it,
it turns something like this

it has applied water texture to each mesh box.
and not like the water you modeled.

Gaieus

Turn on hidden geometry (View menu). This will reveal the facets making up the mesh.
right click on a facet, go to Texture in the context menu and check Projected.
Select the Paint bucket tool and while holding down the Alt button (this will turn the PB tool into a sampler or "eyedropper"), sample the projected material on that piece
turn off hidden geometry
paint the whole surface with the sampled (projected) material.

If you do so much hassle with the water surface however, I'd try to find a better texture for it. Also, while the modelling effort and technique is very nice and the result is cool, in that small pool, those waves look a bit exaggerated. Hope you don't mind me criticizing this part. All in all, you are on the right track with it.

zeeshan

well ! i tried doing what you said but as you see below the "textures" option is not available after right click :

TIG

If you have applied a Material to a Group or Component Instance any 'default' material faces are given this Material. In that case you will not get a 'Texture' option in the context-menu. In the Model (or while editing the parent of this set of faces - 'instance') apply the 'default' material to it. Now edit the 'instance' and give its Faces the 'water' Material - follow the steps as Gaieus outlined earlier - now you will get a 'Texture' context-menu for any selected face if hidden geometry is 'on'.

Gaieus

True, very true. I didn't think of this possibility. Materials applied on groups/components cannot be positioned so you need to apply them straight to the geometry itself (inside the group/component).

zeeshan

GOT IT THANKS !!!!!!!!!