Wakes & TouchUps

The other objects in the scene which are merely stationary objects could also use wakes so that they have more presence in the scene. For the rest of the month I'm going to be working on group project, but when I get time I intend to add extras such as sea spray in the form of an nParticle emitter at the tail end of the boat, possibly change the boat model so that it has a canvas sail that can be replaced with nCloth to illustrate the direction of the wind.

Boats & Functionality Part 2

Another feature of using the motor boat is the ability to set the pitch sending the prow of the boat up in the air as it accelerates. I has been quite fun to experiment with. So the final step of this part is to create the wake for the boat object.

This is done through the use of the create function in fluid dynamics, the wake emitter was not as impressive as the other features set with the ocean function. The emitter has two functions to provide a ripple effect and to create sea foam / spray, these effects are extremely unresponsive and need to be overloaded to give off even a slight response.

One interesting aspect is the use of textures for this functionality, the wake emitters need to be held within an area otherwise the geometry will not be altered.

Boats & Functionality

The next step was to create a boat which act as a moving object through the scene, creating a wake as it passed. At this point I went on the free 3D models .com to get some sample models to use in the demonstration.

http://thefree3dmodels.com/

I collected a small sample of models to use as debris and a single boat object, I would have liked to have had a more populated scene but I did not want the polygon count to increase too drastically and impact the rendering process.

Using the motor boat function results in much like any other locator, allowing for the control over buoyancy and pitch and roll, but with the added features of a "motor" acting as thrust and a rudder which acts to set a general heading. This proves a somewhat entertaining device as it acts as importune animation control.

Floating Objects

The next stage was to include floating objects such as debris, in the scene. This needed to be done to give the scene some depth as just watching the waves would be incredibly dull. Floating objects are also handled within the ocean system with a variety of locators.

At first I used the basic locator, the "Surface Locator" which used a simple expression to keep an object above the water line, this however is not enough as there is no movement to the object, other than in the y axis. The object also needed to realistically roll with the waves and that meant that the use of a more complex locator.

I started testing the dynamic locator, to see what kind of functionality it contained. The dynamic locators used a slightly more detailed expression and instead of following the height of the waves, this locator allowed objects this functionality but with an add bobbing motion.

The dynamic locator has a lot of extra attributes which allowed me to test out the buoyancy effect. The buoyancy of the object, is determined by it's height and buoyancy variables. This result was much better than the simple locator but could still be improved.

The best way to have floating object within the simulation is to use the boat locator, which allows object's to pitch and roll with the waves, with this the debris in the scene became highly realistic. One problem they face was the speed of which they moved, I solved this problem by increasing the air damping on the locator object, this in effect made the area above the waves react with more friction slowing the bobbing motion to a more manageable rate.

Maya Ocean System - Waves Part 3 (Foam & Misc)

I continued to work on the waves with the ocean shader functionality, adding in foam and some lighting for added detail in the scene.

For the foam I played around with the foam emission and threshold values to add a much desired sense of realism to the lack-luster waves, using this system didn't give as interesting results as the use of a particle system however it saved greatly on rendering times.

The foam texture is layered onto the wave geometry where there is a height difference between two points i.e. the crest and the trough. I made sure that the foam content was high to further illustrate the raging sea.

I used the common material attributes sparingly, the only features used was the overall colour of the ocean and the intensity of the trough shadow to show off highlighted areas in the scene, the crest and troughs of the waves.

I finally used the specular lighting function in combination with a directional light to add more detail to the water.

Waves Testing Results

I have been working over the weekend testing out the wave effects in Maya's ocean system, these are a comparison from the basic ocean to the stormy effect I have managed to get in the last few days.

 

Maya Ocean System - Waves Part 2

The next step on creating a more chaotic ocean was to use some interesting graphical interfaces I have yet to see in Maya.

These were interesting interfaces to work with, and rather confusing as to what they did, a lot of experimentation was needed to see what each setting applied to.

Firstly I'll talk about my understanding of the Wave Height, it's main function didn't seem to manipulate the height of waves. It seemed to have more of a focus on changing the level of detail of waves at particular heights.

The graphical interface allowed for a great amount of control of which type of wave was the most detailed and therefore would be most visible in the final product. I chose a balanced approach, while having the longer waves more prominent which gave the waves a more stormy appearance.

The wave turbulence increased the randomness of the waves, and the rendering times of the scene. Again the fine control over the modification was interesting though I don't feel that they are all that necessary, for the most part I worked with extremes to make sure the ocean was as stormy as possible.

Wave Peaking controlled the level of detail over the crests of each wave, adding to the detail of each crest was a very tentative process with extreme results at low values. I used this effect to add detail to the smaller waves, to balance out the amount of attention paid to the larger waves.

Maya Ocean System - Waves

As I look into this functionality, this tool does not seem to be using a dynamic simulation, rather a series of textures and noise that combine to create a displacement map. I have used a height-map to simulate water before, though not on this scale, but my previous experience doesn't come close to the power of this tool.

The majority of control a user has over the ocean effect is through the ocean shader, with it the ocean's attributes can be accessed and customized. The shader holds some basic attributes which control the waves, using such attributes as WindUV and Wind Speed controls the waves direction and speed. But that is just the tip of the iceberg as there are options to control every aspect from wave height to specular shading.

An attribute called observer speed seems to generate the effect of the ocean moving past the camera, though I am not sure what use this will have if I have an animated camera in the scene or moving objects. So it is probably not something I will be using, although if I run out of time and need a faster render I could take out the camera and use this feature. I will experiment more with this feature at a later date.

The first thing I looked for with these attributes was any way to create a more chaotic pattern of waves, so that the scene could be as animated and eye catching as possible. Changing the Num Frequencies and wave turbulence modifiers increases the amount of noise applied to the mesh and diversity of the waves, resulting in a more aggressive ocean.

For more detail in the ocean I modified the Wave Length Min & Max values which changed the shape and formation of each wave, in my case I really want a choppy, stormy sea. So I spent some time tweaking these values to view their effect. These modifiers control the quality of each wave, with the minimum setting controlling fine detail, to a very precise degree.

Maya's Ocean System - Using Geometry Base

So I've experimented with Maya's ocean functionality in class this week and it's is a fantastic piece of work, it can be used to quickly create realistic ocean waves by creating a customized NURBS plane to represent the ocean surface and assigning an ocean shader to it.

There is a huge amount of work that can be added to this effect, through the use of it's varied functions it gives a great amount of control and I believe the ocean shader could be customized for a better visual. This would seem to be a great point to get wave creation over and done with and get my project but on schedule, though I am not sure how much functionality this system holds.

Right off the bat, I can say this is a great system in comparison to the others I have been using as the render times are extremely fast. I believe this is due to a function called the "preview plane" which I can use to view the effect of any changes I make to the plane instantly in the perspective window. And if I wish to see the scene as a whole I can render a frame to view the effect on a larger scale. It's is similar the to testing on a small scale I have been doing over the last few weeks but allows me to see how the changes will affect the large scale scene as well.

Options & Opertunities

So with problems and fears about the effectiveness of using the fluid dynamics and nParticle systems to reach some kinda of positive outcome for the project, I'm looking for other options. My previous research told me that most of these simulations are done with a set of procedurally animated geometry.

I initially didn't want to go down this route because of the depth of mathematical programming involved with such a task and I did not feel it could be achieved to an acceptable degree within the remaining time limit. I feel I could have done more planning on in the beginning of the project, to avoid this situation.

In any case, geometry seems to be a good way to go about this, so I asked around my classmates and colleges who have an interesting in the area. An classmate (I think Norbert was his name?) suggested using Maya's ocean system, I'll be looking into this further this week.