I am trying to create a view looking down on some boats on water, however being a newbie I am facing some difficulty in the task. Whenever I render the water (a plane which I have colored blue and shaped to differing heights), the effect is very strange and fragmented. I am trying to get a picture I can upload but in the meantime are there any suggestions of what I could try doing (the water is untextured).
http://www.blenderman.org/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=15
Follow that and you should be right. 
That url didn’t seem to like me 
blenderman.org is down atm. Try using “set smooth” in the editing panel. Also, what sort of light did you use?
I was using 3 Lamps, I have now changed 2 of them to spotlights but it still isn’t great.
Set Smooth just made the water go all sort of streaky :o :-?
Enter edit mode, select all vertices, go to edit buttons, klick ‘Rem Doubles’.
After that you may use ‘set smooth’ and have a look at bump maps which will give you much better results.
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If the above method doesn’t do the trick, go to object mode, select the water and delete it. I bet the water is still there. The problem is that you have either double vertices or double objects on the exact same position.
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Nico my friend you are a certifiable GENIUS!!! Many thanks!
those streaks can be fixed by going into edit mode, selecting all verts and press CTRL-N. A dialog will popup Click on recalulate normals outside which is the only option. Use set smooth. it smooths out those ugly faces which means a lower sub surf level which equals faster render. 
Hope it helps
HC
Thanks. Tell that my boss 8)
But I guess the ‘double vertex’ ranks high in the top ten beginner mistakes.
Thanks. Tell that my boss 8)
But I guess the ‘double vertex’ ranks high in the top ten beginner mistakes.[/quote]
Is there any time when you would want double vertices? Would it not make sense to have this as a user interface flag that by default removes double vertices automatically AFTER mirroring, rotating operations etc. but NOT immediately after duplication.
I hear 2.35 will automatically do the flipping of normals outside removing the need to do CTL-N.