The purpose of this thread is to make animated water texture (collection of pngs)
Heres an example of zelda wind waker water:
Heres how its modelled:
basically, you can see that the ‘shore’ planes are textured with a sequence of textures like this:
Heres the texture applied to a shore geometry i made:
The UV map is like pressing ‘reset’ unwrap when the plane is selected in the UV/image window.
So basically, I need to make variations of this image:
in such a way as to end up looking like this:
when animated in the game engine.
If you need any more info about how this works, just ask.
So basically I want to know how could I make the rest 59 or so pngs. I know this is an unusual thing to want to make with Blender, but if you think about it, there isnt anything left other than 2d editors like GIMP.
(Thanks blenderartists for not allowing me to post images, you just made the other members waste more time by copy-pasting the urls manually)
UV scroll?
it’s a difficult question, but maybe use GIMP or PHOTOSHOP and manually create a cycle of textures differing from left to right, that way you don’t have to manually create the animation.
You could combine UV scroll with animated textures- for example, if your animation is a series of pictures of the foam changing shape (looks like 8 or so in a row would do) you could shift the UV coordinates in the X direction the width of a frame, and in the Y direction a small amount each frame. I’ve attached a simple example, though you’d want to smooth out the math for the back-and-forth part, and obviously use better textures.
The Wind Waker version obviously also has more layers interacting, but you might have to settle for less as currently Blender doesn’t support very many texture layers with different UV sets.
2.49 file- though it shouldn’t take much tweaking to get it working in 2.5 waterScroll.blend (217 KB)
how to make those 8 or more textures? Draw them by hand? Im suspicious that in this game they used 2 foam textures scrolling on the opposite directions giving effect like the foam is animated. What do you think?
The animated texture would have to be hand-drawn, but the two layers of foam overlapping is probably just one foam animation duplicated and offset.
Another option, though probably less efficient and less ideal, would be to make the effect in non-GE blender (or After Effects, or something else that can make animations), render it out as a series of frames, and either paste them together in one image and play them via the animated texture settings, or render them as a video file and use videotex to play them. This solution is more ideal for more complex 2d effects that take fewer frames, though, as it results in a pretty simple effect taking a pretty solid amount of vram.
PS looks to me like they have 5 layers going on (each requiring its own set of UV coordinates- AFIK Blender can only do 2 right now) the sand, which is static, then the wet sand, which moves out then slowly recedes until it’s hidden by the next wave. Above that is the water, which has a static texture but the alpha is animated to move in and out, then on top of that two separate layers of foam which move in and out. Notice how since the foam layers are both solid colors, it doesn’t matter which one is on top when they overlap each other, since it all reads as a white mass anyways.
I figure I’ll spend a little time today playing around with this to see what I can come up with, since it’s an interesting challenge.
What Im saying is the foam could be 2 foam textures scrolling in the opposite directions (left-right)
Another option, though probably less efficient and less ideal, would be to make the effect in non-GE blender (or After Effects, or something else that can make animations), render it out as a series of frames, and either paste them together in one image and play them via the animated texture settings, or render them as a video file and use videotex to play them. This solution is more ideal for more complex 2d effects that take fewer frames, though, as it results in a pretty simple effect taking a pretty solid amount of vram.
I dont know how optimal it would be, but didnt you frankie also used animated textures for water?
PS looks to me like they have 5 layers going on (each requiring its own set of UV coordinates- AFIK Blender can only do 2 right now)
The end platform isnt BGE for me
I also dont think the sand texture should be part of the quads, the beach geom should have the sand texture and it that part on the planes should simply be transparent, like with many games.
I figure I’ll spend a little time today playing around with this to see what I can come up with, since it’s an interesting challenge.
Sounds like we both have the same idea for the scrolling foam textures, then.
I’m pretty sure you’re right about the animated water, but I also think it was a short animation with just a few frames. The difference here is it’s a rather long loop that would require quite a few frames for smooth results. Certainly doable, but hardly ideal.
The problem with making the sand separate geometry, is the water will have to be nearly touching it- and getting any two planes so close together results in sorting artifacts, even more so when one of them has to be alpha enabled. You’d need to put the water high enough up that the artifacts go away, in which case the player would be able to tell that the water is floating a few inches above the beach.
Unfortunately yesterday I didn’t end up getting another chance to poke around in Blender.
Maybe, i thought you were talking about the 2nd foam wave thing.
I’m pretty sure you’re right about the animated water, but I also think it was a short animation with just a few frames. The difference here is it’s a rather long loop that would require quite a few frames for smooth results. Certainly doable, but hardly ideal.
I think it was actually 40 or so.
I dont think having bunch of texture layers and lerping the UV offset of few of them is going to be any fast, from previous experiences it can really slow things down.
Besides, its how animated sprites/billboards work. Those are used for fire, or anything particle like.
And why should we worry so much about vram,ram? If someone is going to run a game his hardware will need GLSL support at least, so they cant run on a low memory machine anyway. I think when you have the same texture rendered many times or scrolled, it shouldnt take up more memory, right?
The problem with making the sand separate geometry, is the water will have to be nearly touching it- and getting any two planes so close together results in sorting artifacts, even more so when one of them has to be alpha enabled. You’d need to put the water high enough up that the artifacts go away, in which case the player would be able to tell that the water is floating a few inches above the beach.
Ive never experienced such artifacts. Unless you mean the default alpha mode.
But if you will have the sand part, you will get nasty seams.
I had a look atht he unity island demo, looks like it uses transparency.
