#Underwater Effects
Whew… I finally got my jet plume to look good. I tried everything. I
finally did the following…
Took the Snow Column object that comes with Lightwave and copied it
beside itself to make a tall rectangular column of single point polys
(spps). I used a cylinder just slightly smaller than the column of
spps and used a Boolean op to cut a column of spps. Then I saved the
new object with a new surface name.
I then loaded the object into layout and positioned it just inside my
nozzle at frame 0. at frame 7, I moved the object to a point where
the back side in frame 7 was just butted up against the front edge in
frame 0. Then I cloned the object at frame 7 and keyed it without
moving it as frame 0. (Stayed at frame 7 but manually entered frame
0 when prompted to create a key frame)
I repeated the cloning until I reached the surface of the water. The
final object was a bit different. I sized it so that the top edge
was always equal with the surface of the water. By having each
object repeat this motion, the look of the jet plume was achieved.
By rotating the appropriate objects as I cloned the column of spps, I
was able to create a curved path of moving air bubbles. Now my only
problem is memory. The number of polys grows fast! I can have
about 3 full jet plumes and then I run short of memory. Looking at
expanding memory to allow more plumes (Need 12 plus other objects).
I know it took awhile, but I want to thank those of you who gave
support when I needed it. I never thought it would take me this long
to get it.
P.S. I should also mention that you can follow a bubble from the
start all the way to the top. Looks great and only 7 repeating
frames (More frames for slower movement, less for faster). I also
used a fractal displacement map with world coordinates to give the
bubbles a bit of a wiggle.