Ideas for a tidal wave

[ajvelez]

Hey folks, I want to make a tidal wave in real flow and maybe y'all might have some suggestions for me. I was thinking about making a scene using the real wave and then importing a piece of geometry in the shape of a wave. Just a lofted C shaped curve. Then keying the curve moving through the ocean. I don't want a lot of excess simulation so what's the best way to do it? Is there another way that wwould be more efficient?

adam

[Wickeido]

I'm looking for some way to make this effect too. Now i'm trying with a script that makes waves from animated displacement maps, but it's not working very well... in the rf4 demo reel there is a huge wave shot... no one knows what studio had made that? :/

[laxman]

try using the wire tool in maya. Go here:

http://www.mtmckinley.net/

then go to tutorials and look at the wire tool. That should help make the wave shape, and you only have to key one curve. Then convert the nurbs surface to a softbody and apply a turbulance field to it. Then with a good shader it should be a good start.

After that emit particles from the surface of the NURBS surface and have each particle take on the colour of the texture. Make the particles blobbys so they merge into each other, creating a liquid like thing.

[Wickeido]

Although these tutorial are good, I want to try to create that effect in real flow. As i'd said before, I'm trying with an animated displacement map right now, but I don't know why, it doesn't work.

Can you help me a bit to know what's wrong?

I'm using this script from the real wave website. They've even a video showing how to use it, but it just don't work.

Here is the displacement map that I'm using:

http://www.wickeido.com/DisplacementMap.rar

def updateWave( vertices ):

frame = scene.getCurrentFrame()
filePath = "C:/RF4 betatesting/custom-wave/resources/displacement_%(#)04d.jpg" % { "#": frame}

im = Image.new()
im.open( filePath )
imWidth = im.size[0]
imHeight = im.size[1]

#scene.message( str( pointsX ) + " - " + str( pointsY ) )
for i in range( 0, len( vertices ) ):
pixelX = ( imWidth - 1.0 ) * vertices[i].uvw.x
pixelY = ( imHeight - 1.0 ) * vertices[i].uvw.z
pixel = im.getPixel( pixelX ,pixelY )
vertices[i] = Vertex.new( Vector.new( 0.0, pixel[0] / 255.0, 0.0 ) )

I've even tried to make the same folder that is in that script.

Thx in advance.

[sunder]

Hello Wickeido. You might not be able to achieve a tidal wave with that real wave displacement script. That's because it only shifts the vertices on the realwave mesh up in the Y direction --
vertices[i] = Vertex.new( Vector.new( 0.0, pixel[0] / 255.0, 0.0 ) )
As you can see in the script, the x and z position of the vertex are set to 0 leading to no sideways displacement. Tidal waves tend to roll and curl so just movements in the Y direction won't suffice.
One method of creating tidal waves is using real waves together with lots of realflow particles and daemons like gravity, turbulence and vortex. It's still quite challenging this way. I've also seen some people use a container of fluid particles and rock it from side to side to achieve some good tidal waves.

[Wickeido]

Many thanks sunder. I'm gonna try the "rock box with particles" option, maybe it will be nice. :beer