I was just wondering if there was a way of creating some sort of ripples/disturbance at the points where the hands enter the water. This would be more realistic as even the slightest movement of the arms/hands would create some disturbance at the water's surface rather than just going straight into the water with no interaction between the water and the hand.

I'm sure this should be possible, but am somewhat at a loss as to how to do it. I did a search in the forum threads, but the ones that might help seem to be unavailable ( possibly the links aren't working following the site revamp a while back? ). I suspect it may be possible using the function editor ( yikes! ) - if anyone could walk me through the process of doing this I'd be VERY grateful - I've struggled to work out the function editor for ages now and don't find the manual/help files very helpful!

Many thanks.

I don't think this is possible, unless you maybe set up an animation, and animate the water surface, provided there is some noise bump to the water. But even then, the effect won't look like a ripple due to the hand getting in the water, since there are no interactions between such objects in Vue.

Or you could create a ripple object, or buy one from C3D and see how it looks.

Or create a noise bump for water, add an onion  turbulence, and plaxce your figure according to the placement of the turbulence.

Attached Link: http://excalibur.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=1223688

I then export from Carrara, then import to Vue, and texture as desired.  I end-up with a true 3D ripple.

LC, how can you import a displacement map in Vue?

It's exported from Carrara as a 3D mesh.  Vue simply sees it as an .obj or .3ds file.

Ok, but displacement is a material component, not part of  the mesh, right? Vue is not supposed to be able to read this information. I'm curious how you get it into Vue.

No...in carrara, the material/texture provides the geometric configuration for the displacement -- the map.  It's kind of like a height map that works in all x,y,z directions.  A displacement mesh becomes a distinct object separate from texture.

Oh, I see. Quite different from regular displacement, then. So all this micro displacement adds to the poly count as well, I suppose? Don't you end up with millions of  polygon objects this way?

Still, a cool feature.

Oh yeah...any true displacement adds to the poly count.  However, when working in Carrara, you can turn off the 3D view for displaced object (object is viewed – just doesn’t show displacement effect), so it won't add to the display burden.  However, it will show all displacement when rendering.  If you want to export a displaced object, you have to select “Displace in 3D view.”

It will be interesting to see how e-on implements its displacement mapping in Vue6.

LCB - thanks for your input. I was just trying your method of creating a plane in Carrara, applying ripple to it and displacing, then exporting as an .obj or .3ds into Vue. However, when the plane is imported into Vue all I get is a flat plane - somehow the ripple/displacement isn't showing up, even when I render. I'm obviously missing something in the process. Any thoughts?? Thanks

LCB - I just enabled subdivision in the Carrara displacement mapping dialogue box and now when I import this displaced mesh into Vue it seems to show up ok..... so, do you always need to turn this subdivision option on for this technique to work ok?

Question from newbie:

When you bring in your water object from Carrara, are you bringing in the human model?  Aren't you using him/her to displace the water or are you using another model of some sort?

Also, are you rendering a series of .obj or .3ds (hence a series of ripples example: ripple001.obj, ripple002.obj, etc...)?  How do you bring a series of object into vue like that?

~Shawn

i think the human figure was imported to Vue direclty from Poser, only the ripple object was imported from Carrara, and then placed according to the hand placement. If you want to bring a series of objects in Vue, just bring them one by one. If you meant animated objects, you can't . I don't think this is possible in any 3d package.

Here is another wave displacement I did in Carrara, then imported into a Vue scene.  All the models and textures are done in Vue.  The mesh comes in as a displaced 3D object (.obj seems to xlate cleaner -- though makes for a larer file size -- not that large though).