[req] Water pool

[Pibuz]

Hi all!
Sorry for the silly request, but after a few tests i still can't achieve a beautiful water pool! How you skindigo users model a bumped water pool which creates caustics? Do you use CoolColJ water preset? Do you model a simple surface or you make it a volume? Share yur settings and final results PLEASE !!!!

[fused]

you have to model a volume and i believe(pls correct me if im wrong ) that bump mapped waves wont generate wavy caustics.

youll have to model it or use the displacement feature.

[Pibuz]

oh, thanks fused for the quick reply! Ok, i'm now waiting for other posts, most of all by sketch users, cos i feel in skindigo the workflow is a little tricky.. Thank you, by the way!

[mr_jo]

Hi Pibuz and all, and sorry in advance for my poor english (I write down the Italian version, is better ); for the water in the attached render, like fused says, I made a "volume" and on the top surface I've used the "sandbox" tool of SU and with an appropriate mesh I've created the wave with the "smoove" comand; after this I've used the "soften/smooth edges" tool. The water material is a specular with IOR=1.13 (water must have 1.333 but I prefere so) precedence= 10 and a bit of SSS (0.1), full trasparence. I stopped the render at 4.000 spp about.


[ Ciao Pibuz, ti prego, se ho scritto strafalcioni linguistici, poni rimedio ;
in pratica ho creato un cubo fuori scena, un po più grande della stanza, poi l'ho spostato fino ad intersecare la stanza alla quota che si vede, poi sulla superficie superiore ho applicato lo strumento sabbiera suddividendo la superficie stessa con una meshatura adeguata, poi con il comando "smoove" della sabbiera ho spostato un po di punti, verso l'alto e verso il basso, variando di volta in volta il raggio di spostamento, prendendo in questo modo più o meno punti; alla fine ho "smussato" tutta la superficie con lo "soften/smooth edges". A tutto il cubo ho dato il materiale acqua usando uno "specular" con IOR 1.13 (in realtà l'acqua dovrebbe avere 1.333 ma ho preferito abbassarlo un po) precedence 10 un po di SSS 0.1 e trasparenza massima. ]

[kwistenbiebel]

really cool rendering there mr_jo!
You should be posting these things in the gallery section.

About Pibuz question.
I would love to answer the question but water is something difficult and I am not sure what the best solution is.
mr_jo's water material looks nice, but I think it should also be possible with bump maps on a flat surface. However, in the Pinoccio scene, 'hard' modeling the water with smoove definitely is the best method.

By the way, a question I have for a long time now: what does the 'precedence' parameter do?

[zsouthboy]

Model the water as a volume, as stated - I don't anything specific to Sketchup to tell you about that.

You can indeed bumpmap waves and get caustics, that's no problem, however too high bump value looks ugly.

For material settings, make sure you have the correct scene scale.

IOR of 1.33
Slight absorbtion of blue green.
Slight SSS

[zsouthboy]

Precedence allows you to model volumes without having to hack them up to put them inside one another.

For example, you can enclose your scene with a SSS air volume for a fog effect, and give it a precedence of 1.

If you have another volume (say a cup of water) in your scene inside the air, you just choose a higher precedence for it to "displace" the lower precedence volume, so 2 or higher.

and put a piece of SSS plastic in that water -> precedence of 3 or higher.

The SSS plastic will automatically displace the fog and the water, and the water will automatically displace the fog.

This is MUCH easier than some other renderers, whose volume boundaries have to be modeled and split precisely (to see what i'm saying - you would have to model a missing portion inside the fog for the water and plastic, and a missing portion for the plastic in the water)

[Whaat]

Precedence example from zsouthboy

http://www.indigorenderer.com/joomla/fo ... precedence

[mr_jo]

thanks guys
about precedence I think in my scene it's not necessary cause no other specular material is present, isn't?

[kwistenbiebel]

Thank you zsouthboy and Whaat.
Good explanation.

[Kram1032]

best water would be the special one by CCJ - Fresh spring water with greenish appearance... - and, which probably is the slower part - correct chromatic dispersion...

[Pibuz]

ok, kram: in fact i'd very like to use it. But does that mat need to be assigned to a volume or to a simply bumped surface?

[Kram1032]

ANY transparent material (besides probably NULL) should be assigned to a volume
Otherwise, you never know before, whether it works or not... There where some strange phenomenas, where only a plane was used and it worked. But not correctly.
The only way to do it correct is to use Volume and eventually correct Precedence-settings as needed

[Pibuz]

oh: OK! Thanks guys! I'll give it a try soon!

[cpfresh]

Hi all! I've tried to model and render a swimming pool after this thread came out, and it is pretty difficult. The problem is primarily the surface of the water. Being in Sketchy, the available tools for modelling the waters surface are rather incapable for the job. So I thought why not try a displacement map. I've gotten varied results which lead me to ask, does anyone have any awesome water maps? I'll post a little something in a bit once its cooked a bit more, but seriously, the map i used was rather poor. The result almost looks as though the pool is currently experiencing an earthquake! LOL Anyways, any maps would be appreciated. And please keep the other suggestions coming as well.


**EDIT** added pic