Animating Cartoon Water

Support Animation and Rigging
1

Hi guys,

I’m a Blender rookie here in need of help. I am using V2.63a. Google and YouTube haven’t helped me much at this point…

I have made a landscape with a river that empties into a pond. Here is my question: What is the best way to make animated cartoon water for the river and pond (similar to The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker)? It doesn’t have to be exactly like that. Obviously, I won’t want the water to be rough like an ocean. Just kind of a calm, flowing river.

Do I just have to make a plane and use the ocean modifier for it? I’ve also heard of people also using a series of images on a plane to make it look like the water is moving. Which is easier? Is there something better than either of these two solutions? Are there any good tutorials out there for this?

Thanks.

2

I think you’re better off using Dynamic Paint’s Wave function. Here’s a tut: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pebBFwLnEk It’s pretty straight forward. Btw, Wind Waker is SUUUCH a great game…

3

Lol, yeah! It’s been a while since I played that. Anyway, thanks for the dynamic paint info. I hadn’t heard of it before. It looks pretty cool. I’ll be able to jump on my CPU in a bit to try it out. Just wondering, can I blow wind on the plane to accomplish the same thing as the sphere in the video?

4

I just tried it out. It’s really slick. Thanks so much for the help!

5

Is there any way to get wind from a plane or empty to blow on the plane that is the water? I’d rather do that than colliding objects into the water all the time.

6

I’ve found that using particle systems work, but it makes the water look more like it’s rain hitting the water rather than wind blowing the water.

7

I got quite nice results by animating a plane (set as dynpaint brush) with fractal subdivision over the water surface, just make sure it has some thickness (select all and extrude it up the z axis a little)
Then animate that one so that it touches the surface a little and move over it.