Mythruna

General Category => General Discussion => Topic started by: pspeed on October 05, 2014, 12:03:56 AM



Title: Waterfall stuff...
Post by: pspeed on October 05, 2014, 12:03:56 AM
I spent the last day or so working on a waterfall effect for Dragonfly Odyssey.  It uses shader-side animation of some shader-side billboarded quads.  I've reached the end of my self-imposed tweaking deadline and this is what I have so far:
http://youtu.be/s0rAjdx2PXI

Description from the video page:
Quote
    It’s not ‘perfect’ but I’ve reached my “tweaking deadline”. Things like this, I have to give myself a deadline for endless tweaking otherwise it takes too much time. It’s obviously a waterfall now and I can swing back and tweak it some more when there is more of a game. The waterfall is one of the critical story elements and helps tie together some of the other water-related stuff I’m working on.

    This particle effect is done as a static mesh using a shader-side particle effect and billboard rotated quads (in shader). It’s the same mesh layered a few times with different textures… though it could have just as easily been different meshes, too.

    Three layers at the moment that don’t always sort like they should and you see them pop in front. Good enough for now.

    This is using ideas that I designed for Mythruna, so when it’s all properly working then this will definitely be a part of Mythruna’s water system.

    Simsilica, LLC Web site: http://simsilica.com
    Follow at: http://twitter.com/simsilica
    WIP site: http://dragonfly-odyssey.com

tl;dr: it’s not perfect but it’s good enough for now.

As said, this is definitely the kind of waterfalls I eventually want in Mythruna and is one of the major points of having a more complicated water system there.  It's nice to know that once 'flow' is working in Mythruna that I'll be able to drop in some waterfalls right away.

The path of the falls itself is generated by a simple physics function and so can technically bounce and interact with the terrain if I want it to.  In Mythruna's case, this will include user-placed objects and so on.  No point in being able to blueprint a roof/umbrella if it won't deflect the water. :)


Title: Re: Waterfall stuff...
Post by: Rayblon on October 06, 2014, 05:17:20 PM
Does the umbrella statement mean getting soaked isn't good? :3


Title: Re: Waterfall stuff...
Post by: Michael on October 06, 2014, 05:28:53 PM
I noticed how the water grays and browns based on angle in setting. Is this dealing with transparency of an image used, a purposefully-added feature, or a bug/nonpurposefully-added feature?


Title: Re: Waterfall stuff...
Post by: Rayblon on October 06, 2014, 05:56:15 PM
I noticed how the water grays and browns based on angle in setting. Is this dealing with transparency of an image used, a purposefully-added feature, or a bug/nonpurposefully-added feature?

Maybe it's fish poop.


Title: Re: Waterfall stuff...
Post by: pspeed on October 06, 2014, 08:07:39 PM
I noticed how the water grays and browns based on angle in setting. Is this dealing with transparency of an image used, a purposefully-added feature, or a bug/nonpurposefully-added feature?

It doesn't brown... but it does gray.  If you look at the back (unlit side) of a thick waterfall in real life, it is darker than looking from the front.  If everything is universally white then it isn't water anymore, it's glow-liquid.


Title: Re: Waterfall stuff...
Post by: Rayblon on October 06, 2014, 08:16:10 PM
It doesn't brown... but it does gray.  If you look at the back (unlit side) of a thick waterfall in real life, it is darker than looking from the front.  If everything is universally white then it isn't water anymore, it's glow-liquid.

Glow liquid sounds pretty fun... >:3

Also y u make colors verbs.


Title: Re: Waterfall stuff...
Post by: pspeed on October 07, 2014, 01:50:09 AM
Also y u make colors verbs.

He started it.


Title: Re: Waterfall stuff...
Post by: Rayblon on October 07, 2014, 05:28:49 AM
Also y u make colors verbs.

He started it.

I meant it for both of you xD


Title: Re: Waterfall stuff...
Post by: Michael on October 09, 2014, 03:04:52 PM
My thought of why it would be white all-around is because water is transparent liquid, and they're particles, so there's space for sunlight to get around them.

Turns pretty gray/dark: http://youtu.be/s0rAjdx2PXI?t=57s Not saying it's not good, but realistically it wouldn't get that dark, and you'd still see some white in it from the part that's shining on it.

Brown: http://youtu.be/s0rAjdx2PXI?t=1m33s

I'm not trying to criticize your work, and I honestly love it, but these parts were just, "whoa!" Honestly, I think it's just amazing just how the waterfall looks.