Flashing Ocean Problem

[petko]

I'm using Maya 7.0 ocean with a floating ship. With a directional light the rendered image has flickering like flashing lightning. I tried turning off the directional light on the ship and used a spotlight. The flashing on the ship was eliminated but not on the rendered ocean. I tried turning off the directional light and used one spotlight to illuminate both ship and ocean. The flickering was eliminated but there is no foam on the rendered ocean.
What is cuasing the flickering?

[duncanbrinsmead]

It might have something to do with bad shadow settings, if you have enabled shadows. If not perhaps it is specular highlights. A directional light will have huge highlights on flat surfaces that can suddenly flash as the object moves, particularily if they are distant, or there is a low field of view on the camera. (like signalling someone by reflecting the sun with a mirror)

The ocean has a built in reflection map, so it will show up when not illuminated, but the foam will be very dark and hard to see as it is not reflective.

Duncan

[petko]

Thanks a lot. I thought it was a bug in Maya 7. I tried using the ocean examples and I just tweaked the lighting and ocean properties. It rendered well. No more flickering.

[petko]

By the way, I scaled the Ship up x4 (using the same ocean sample file). The flickering was eliminated. I guess the ship I'm using was too small for the ocean. Again thanks for your help.