CompuServe Messages

mike… i've had some pretty good luck with water/waves using a combination of bump maps, texture maps, and reflection maps… i've found that creating a tileable bump map which simulates the waves (usually i use a series of "elliptical gradients" — photoshop's <dodge> feature with an elliptical brush works nicely) is a good place to start… from there you can play around with reflection options… and for even better effects, you can layer a few different materials on top of each other with varying degrees of opacity, which can simulate depths… finally, by mixing in "noisy" texture maps, you can simulate the "glistening" effect that the ocean seems to have… best of luck… … joe