CompuServe Messages

Gregory; There are a few good tricks to making realistic water, but most of the time you need a lot of trial and error. To get a good under water scene it helps if there are objects within the scene (hopefully going off into the distance). These objects allow you to create a sense of atmosphere and depth. By using a projector light with an animated map such as CAUSTIC off of the 3DS Special Effects book you can create that flickering light effect. To create beams of light, create geometry in the shape of the beams and assigning transparent additive 2 sided materials to the geometry. From above water the WATER.SXP works very well to create the opens seas kind of look. It does not hold up if you are close to an intersecting piece of geometry such as a ship. Under this condition you need to add additional pieces of geometry with white transparent frothy animated maps applied to the geometry. WATER.SXP also does not create white caps or extremely rough waters. This trick I have not figured out yet. Good luck with you article, hope this helps… Zac (AZ-TECH Studios) Berkeley -Zac Rymland (AZ-TECH)