River Flow

Maya
1

Hi all,

The FX I am trying to do is to create a river flow along a curved bank. The shot is quite long and there are both close-up and far view ... I've tried some method but to no avail. 1st method was to use Maya ocean shader ... However, the ocean has multiple sin wave while the river got define flow and the wave are elongated and curved wave rather than straight ones. I've tried the suggestion of combining observer speed to create flow but the look is not there . 2nd method was to use wave texture as displacement map .. however, similarly, the wave can get an elongated shape but the wave is not curved, and most importantly, they move uniformly, creating very artificial look ...

I've tried also connect the water texture to ocean shader 's waveheightOffset, however, seem like ocean shader doesn't compute the reflection and so based on a combine result. Rather the reflection is the same b4 & after the texture is connected

I am desperately looking for an answer as the clock is ticking ...

Any help or suggestion is highly appreciated

2

you may try to first create a nurbs plane,modify its shape to match the river flow,make sure U or V direction is along the river flow(maybe it's easy to create the curves to match first,then loft and eg.use blendShape to modify the nurbs's shape ),then attach the oceanShader ,make the wave speed along U or V which is determined by the river direction:)

3

Maybe a nurbs surface with an animated water texture/displacement? Or even softbody animation with animated displacement.

4

Thanks for your suggestions ...

@mayacner: I've create the surface along the river bank and use observer speed to create a moving river ... however, for oceanShader, the key problem is that the wave is in sin wave and can't get the elongated wave (smt like when u create a water texture & stretch the u v with proportion of 10:1 -> stretching along U) ... however, if i use ocean texture and stretch it in U, the stretching is uniform ... somemore, if I use the ocean texture for stretching, then map the texture to oceanShader's offsetHeight (by setting the numFrequencies=0 (as suggested by Duncan)), the reflection is not reflected on the new wave ... dunno whether this is maya prob or not ...

@bjohnston: I've tried the animated water texture, however, I can't seem to get the flow and standing wave. the animated water texture only create a pretty uniform moving down water rather than a realistic way ...

Still stuck at getting the desired look ... any further suggestions are highly welcome

5

Have you tried to use the softbody to simulate it,eg.make a nurbs along the river,create the softbody,add turbulence,animate the Phase using expression(eg.phaseX=time*?)to simulate the wave's direction ,all need is to tune the parameter in turbulence field,and add spring to the particle is also necessary for realistic.what's more realflow plug-in for maya is excellent and another way to work it out:)

6

There is a way that you did't try; the particules sprites, they used that in lord of the ring during the big flow with the trees :
you render a straight flow you like or find a video that you loop, which is better.
you apply that on sprites big enough to cover each ones nicely, you can paint a fade out on the borders to a better blend (it is not too little sprits, but almost medium cards you need)
You can use a curveflow or a dynamic sim, but you have to be careful the sprites are sliding with not to much distance between them on Z axe, more flat it is, better it look ( you can add a latice on you flow on the end to make it more flat)

This way work better for a an agitated river, for a very calm river, a simple straight nurbs plane that you bend could work with just a nice texture animated in translate

Cheers
Jaz

7

Does it have to be done inside of Maya or can it be done using plug-ins and imported into Maya ?

Any further luck ?

8

QUOTE(Scott_e1985 @ 06/18/08, 06:17 AM) [snapback]287194[/snapback]
Does it have to be done inside of Maya or can it be done using plug-ins and imported into Maya ?

Any further luck ?

did you try real flow?
you can create liquids with it. i think it will help.

9

QUOTE
did you try real flow?
you can create liquids with it. i think it will help.

not for a river nicely flowing, realflow is a big heavy on, good for liquid action with splashs ans interation and stay a bit blobby

the others suggestions was the right way for me

cheers