United3dArtists Archive

Water shader, clouds using tSpecial E

Post by noko » 29 Oct 2009, 11:25

I guest this is best location for this. The water shader can be found in the scene file if you are interested. These shaders where design for low overhead for on line content and are more or less shader effects. So they are not particle, accurate physic type stuff which would require alot more procesor power. The water is using a camera hooled up to render to texture, This keeps the water reflecting the moving sky except I had a hard time getting the camera to be accurate with the sky . The water shader itself is basically two normal maps moving in any direction you adjust, using a refraction operation it gives the illusion of water. Changing the normal maps will change the effect, experiment you might have some fun. If you do try out the scene please let me know how it performs on your rig with quick description of what video card you have. The moving clouds is using the tSpecial-E shader that came with tS 7.6 and 7.61. The video was thrown together so it might be useful to view to get a few ideas. Plus all the text after compiling ended up in the wrong place, earlier then set in Magix but should be ok knowing that. Expect to be frustrated if you dive on in since things can go hay wire really quick. I recommend you do small adjustments and undoing them once you figure out what it does, if anything . ahh yeah the sub was done by me some time ago for a SMC, the pier is from Prodigy also some time ago. I will post the You-Tube video once it is done uploading plus it may take awhile to convert to HD format as well. Also if anyone wants to place this scene on a OurSpace server, please do, just post here. I am very curious in how it performs on a trueServer.
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Water_Clouds_Sub.zip

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Re: Water shader, clouds using tSpecial E

Post by 3dvisuals dude » 29 Oct 2009, 20:42

This is absolutely awesome work David thank you for making this shader and these awesome methodologies available to us all with this tutorial.

This is going to be a BIG part of a few trueServer scenes I have in mind now and this tutorial is already exactly what I need to accomplish these things at last! WOOHOO !!!!

- Mark <<<<< a happy camper!

"Advantage is had from whatever is there, but usefulness arises from whatever is not." - Lao Tzu (Tao Te Ching - 500 BC)

Re: Water shader, clouds using tSpecial E

Post by noko » 30 Oct 2009, 00:22

Thanks 3dvisual dude. Let know how it performs on your machine as well as well as anyone else. Plus if anyone can put it on a trueServer I would apprciate that for testing purposes.

Now actually I think much more training is needed, I just threw together that last night so folks hopefully won't be totally lost. The tSpecial E shader is the harder one of the two but much more versatile or flexible. The water shader actually might be useful for portal effects, wave motion etc.. which would be low overhead because a render to texture wouldn't be needed. Anyways I was making up a tSpecial E training plan and over 60% done, that was a year ago . I see no reason why not to finish it and get it published. But I do need some sort of feedback and hopefully some interest.

Now literally hundreds of effects are possible but will need to be mapped out, we could have a database of easy effects which folks could tap into when needed hopefully for OurSpace. Now I hope folks don't compare these to the million dollar plus effects they see in games and movies. These are instead home bred, single person (hopefully others will pursue as well) home fun endeavors. Some actually turned out rather nice so I am not ashame of that. Anyways we don't always have to compare ourselves or achievements to ridiculasly at times expensive adventures by a team of highly paid professionals. Really what paves the way to new ground is hard work, dedication and some faith.

Re: Water shader, clouds using tSpecial E

Post by LeonRegis » 30 Oct 2009, 09:05

Amazing Noko,really interesting...

I'm interested e can give some feedback if I can, so how many you still need?
I think that this is really fun and our achievements needs to be celebrate as a cooperative action, because all of us are envolved in this and putting hard work here even not being payed for that so if we achieve something is because some good heart people did something for all of us, some more than others, like you Noko...

Cya

Re: Water shader, clouds using tSpecial E

Post by noko » 30 Oct 2009, 14:58

Re: Water shader, clouds using tSpecial E

Post by LeonRegis » 30 Oct 2009, 15:41

it didn't worked here, I'm not sure why, but I guess is my graphics card.... Anyway what I see on the video is amazing!

Re: Water shader, clouds using tSpecial E

Post by noko » 30 Oct 2009, 16:35

Re: Water shader, clouds using tSpecial E

Post by LeonRegis » 30 Oct 2009, 16:58

Re: Water shader, clouds using tSpecial E

Post by trueBlue » 30 Oct 2009, 19:19

Re: Water shader, clouds using tSpecial E

Post by noko » 30 Oct 2009, 20:24

Re: Water shader, clouds using tSpecial E

Post by 3dvisuals dude » 31 Oct 2009, 01:10

I am trying to make the time to examine this and also Clinton Reese's latest tutorial on cloth to vertex morphing, and I am not sure when I am going to be able to dedicate the exclusive focused time I intend to for each. I will though as soon as I can, and when I do I will report back here in this thread on related performance and considerations which occur to me as I explore it all in depth. Thanmks Noko, I am very excited about this stuff and definitely will be using it all a lot very soon!

"Advantage is had from whatever is there, but usefulness arises from whatever is not." - Lao Tzu (Tao Te Ching - 500 BC)

Re: Water shader, clouds using tSpecial E

Post by noko » 01 Nov 2009, 07:10

Thanks 3DVD, fast way is to go to TrueBlue's server and check it out .

Re: Water shader, clouds using tSpecial E

Post by 3dvisuals dude » 01 Nov 2009, 07:52

Will do and thanks!

I plan to invest some very serious time in studying this though after I do that, it has so much potential for use in immersive online scenes and interactivity.

I will drop in to trueBlue's Server in a few hours when I can break free here to explore and enjoy thanks!

"Advantage is had from whatever is there, but usefulness arises from whatever is not." - Lao Tzu (Tao Te Ching - 500 BC)

Re: Water shader, clouds using tSpecial E

Post by 3dvisuals dude » 05 Nov 2009, 07:27

Finally made it to the scene online at trueBlue's Shared Spaces.

LOVED IT !!!!!!!!!!!

This is awesome stuff David, I can't wait to dig into this in my own scenes and see what I can whip up with all this!

My system never pulled more than an 11 percent CPU hit with the animations running, even while I was walking around in there in FPN. All smooth navigation too, no glitches whatsoever, no jerkiness.

(Pentium Dual CPU / 1.80 Ghz & 1.80 Ghz / 2 GB Ram / XP Home SP2 / ATI Radeon HD 2400 PRO 256MB DDR2)

That is outstanding, given that any timer will pull a ten percent CPU hit in shared space with my system, so all the animation had no lag effect whatsoever! WOOHOO !!!!!!

I see you are using DDS which is probably why, well done!

"Advantage is had from whatever is there, but usefulness arises from whatever is not." - Lao Tzu (Tao Te Ching - 500 BC)

Re: Water shader, clouds using tSpecial E

Post by noko » 05 Nov 2009, 08:52

Thanks 3DVD! Great seeing it runs on your system, considering just about every pixel, depending on what you are looking at can be changing in real time this is great performance from tS and really shows it's strengths. Too bad other folks higher up didn't see that.

I was able to adapt animated displacement mapping to go along with this except I am getting glitches, so I need to look more into that. Displacement maps are some powerful stuff but also resource consuming .

Feel free to use what ever you want out of scene. This weekend will probably be good to dig deeper into how to adjust sky shader (tSpecial E and maybe water shader too) in video.

Re: Water shader, clouds using tSpecial E

Post by 3dvisuals dude » 06 Nov 2009, 00:41

Sweet! Looking forward to it!

I see this, and then I see the very realistic wave displacement that SteveBe had going on in his WavePool2 and I am wondering if something similar could be developed for this ocean. I will play with that some too!

And yes, at just an 11 percent CPU hit with all this it is smooth as glass online, so expandability with this is wide open in shared spaces!

"Advantage is had from whatever is there, but usefulness arises from whatever is not." - Lao Tzu (Tao Te Ching - 500 BC)

Re: Water shader, clouds using tSpecial E

Post by noko » 06 Nov 2009, 00:59