LightWave and Photoshop tutorials:
Modeling, part one
Lighting, part one
Surfacing, part two

6. Water surface

. Load Water01.lwo. Set the surface parameters like this:



(Reflection options: Raytrace & Backdrop)

I've used settings like 62.5% reflectivity, but they aren't that exact... i just happened to drag the slider there, 55% or 70% would both prolly work just fine. I usually take a setting, and if it's too little i double it, do test render, and if it's too much this time i go half way back, render etc. Limited region speeds things up while tweaking.

The bump map:



The size is 0.5m,0.5m,0.5m. (In no particular order ;-) There's again some falloff, but only 0.5% / axis this time. It's used to fade the bumps a bit near the horizon.



Wait... this is our water? Surprisingly, yes it is. (Well almost there ;-) As in real life, our water get's most of it's colorization by reflecting the environment. So, let's add a gradient background and turn reflection raytracing on...

Hee! The smart ones just realized that this sort of water sucks with Skytracer unless you use render wrap images ;-)



That's more like it. Ok, but the underwater parts don't show too well. It's time for a plugin: Let's add (Surfaces > Advanced) LW_Real_Fresnel to the water, in it's default incarnation, and voilá:



Ok, maybe a bit too much, but that can be fixed by tweaking the plugin (Or camera-angle) a bit ;-) Also, if you are using an older version of LightWave, try to search www.flay.com for free fresnel shaders.

Oh, I almost forgot... the water can be animated by giving the bump texture some velocity, 1/10 of the surface size in Y axis is a good starting point. Raytracing also the shadows and refraction furter enhance the image, but the render-time punishment is quite hard. Also try crumple bumps for a bit more windy weather...

Next we will add the trees.

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