[Effects] River Rapids effect

Post by **Rhino** » 2007-12-10 19:16

[R-MOD]Masaq wrote:That looks gorgeous, and sounds gorgeous too.

What I will say though Rhino is that it really should be on a bending, twisting river if it's possible to get the effect to travel "in curves" (if that makes any sense).

You rarely find that a fast-flowing river travels in a canal-straight path for very long; the speed of the flow means the river cuts its way through the landscape much quicker than a slowly flowing, larger, river. This means that they follow the seam of softest rock/ground down, which rarely has a dead-straight path to it.

It looks stunning, but at the same time it looks very artificial. If immersion is the goal, that river needs some twists and curves in it to feel like a naturally occuring flow.

Hope that's constructive and doesn't seem like I'm panning it, because I'm really not - it does look top-notch, from a technical/effects level.

Ye I know what you mean, have done a hell of alot of kayaking and Canoeing in the past and did try to do that but it didn't look at all nice and to do it for the entier river would have taken for ages aswell, so not worth the realism of the water. They are called eddies btw where you get still areas of water behind rocks etc

Post by **Masaq** » 2007-12-10 19:30

[R-DEV]Rhino wrote:Ye I know what you mean, have done a hell of alot of kayaking and Canoeing in the past and did try to do that but it didn't look at all nice and to do it for the entier river would have taken for ages aswell, so not worth the realism of the water. They are called eddies btw where you get still areas of water behind rocks etc

Yeah, I used to be an avid kyaker in my youth (he says at the ripe old age of 22 lol) and I'm still a very keen sailor, at least when I've got time and access to my boats. Guess that's why it kinda leapt out at me as being odd, I suppose.

One way of doing it is to segment a river into small straight sections with a slight angle between them all, with minature waterfalls providing the "joints", but I should think that's a helluva lot of work?

Post by **Rhino** » 2007-12-10 19:49

[R-MOD]Masaq wrote:Yeah, I used to be an avid kyaker in my youth (he says at the ripe old age of 22 lol) and I'm still a very keen sailor, at least when I've got time and access to my boats. Guess that's why it kinda leapt out at me as being odd, I suppose.

One way of doing it is to segment a river into small straight sections with a slight angle between them all, with minature waterfalls providing the "joints", but I should think that's a helluva lot of work?

hehe, luckly I keep my chatlogs so I can find my WIP pics ive uploaded

here was my first attempt, very basic POC to see if it worked, as you can see, looks pretty ****.

and the best resault was what I have more or less stuck with, with a few tweaks.

Would have also been alot more partials probs doing it the other way and would have ran into many other problems, so its best all round doing it this way

Alex6714 · Post by **Alex6714** » 2007-12-10 20:22

Well doesn´t that look nice.

Love this new subforum.

Post by **Masaq** » 2007-12-10 20:39

Rhino - yeah, the second way looks *much* better. The first pic looks like you've run a giant "spray" paintbrush over the river lol.

The effect is definitely "wowza!", it's just the nitty-gritty of making it look natural - and really with the fact that water can't "run" downhill in-game, I guess that's something we have to kinda put up with. Top notch work, though

Post by **Mongolian_dude** » 2007-12-10 20:49

Sick
No way to get the players to drift slightly downstream is there? then you can REALLY boast in the rest of the BSS guys' faces.

...mongol...

SWIZZ=kettcar= · Post by **SWIZZ=kettcar=** » 2007-12-10 22:28

vera good work, it will be bring more atmosphere into the new release

S.P.C-[Reality]- · Post by **S.P.C-[Reality]-** » 2007-12-11 00:21

that looks awesome as long as it doesnt give me lag.

LtSoucy · Post by **LtSoucy** » 2007-12-11 01:28

looks great! i see taht you go under the top layer but only problem.

Post by **Rhino** » 2007-12-11 11:45

LtSoucy wrote:looks great! i see taht you go under the top layer but only problem.

like i said on the first post, fixed that ages ago.

<1sk>Headshot · Post by **<1sk>Headshot** » 2007-12-11 15:28

Awesome work.

Swe_Olsson · Post by **Swe_Olsson** » 2007-12-11 21:30

Rhino, if only you knew how much i would give to exchange braincells with you !

Post by **AfterDune** » 2007-12-11 22:02

I really like this new effect. These things make PR even better! I can only imagine the sound (noise) of a river or waterfall, blocking other sounds, making you not aware of the enemy, sneaking up on you...

I love it!

meatmasher · Post by **meatmasher** » 2007-12-12 00:59

is there anyway you can make the rapids effect be able to carry a person downstream with the rapid not a very fast movement but one that is noticable

Post by **Rhino** » 2007-12-12 09:07

meatmasher wrote:is there anyway you can make the rapids effect be able to carry a person downstream with the rapid not a very fast movement but one that is noticable

read the first post

Post by **PARAMEDIC.CA** » 2007-12-12 11:58

well done! this will be a nice effect to add to many of your future maps.

Post by **Rhino** » 2007-12-12 12:06

none of my planned future maps will need it I dont think

Post by **Rhino** » 2007-12-12 19:45

new version of the video, featuring a little white water rafting

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miNFwKdVd9Y[/youtube]

Post by **Outlawz7** » 2007-12-12 19:48

I take, the rapids a re a static object, as you can't have more than one water level in Bf2 maps? The effect and water are overlapping on some spots as well

Post by **Rhino** » 2007-12-12 20:01

the river is a waterplane, like the waterplanes on fushe pass, draon valley etc.

the effect is "overlapping", which is acturly just offset cos if you had them dead on each other all you would get is the 2 meshes flickering though each other which looks really crappy.