I am using a good tiling image for the sand and a displacement map made in Crazybump. I think the water is pretty decent but would like to be able to do two things with my sand shader.

(1) I want to add a P node to control the darkness of the sand starting at a hair under the surface of the water and graduate to black at the very lowest altitude of the sand model. That will help me get the depth I want instead of what you see in this first image.

(2) I would like to get a wet sand look a few feet about water level for the look of the after effects of waves hitting the shore.

The water is not animated and is intended for still shots.

This whole product is only 88,073 polygons including all the trees toys, Pier, water sky and buildings, so you can add people to the scene and not have your system cry.

Any help I can get would be very much appreciated!

Almost done with this set so if I can get at least some help with the sand I can release this bad boy.

Tom

As you can see the sand goes all the way out to the sky dome, but does not look right due to the even darkness. It is lower at the outer distance a slope af about 6 degrees throughout the whole product.

If you have suggestions for the water I am all ears.

Can it be assumed the scene is always centered around 0,0. If it needs to be relative to the props, how does the UV of the beach work (i.e. can that be used to control the darkness of the material).

Yes the top of the concrete walk surface on the Pier is at world zero just a few feet from the sand so when you add a character it is standing on the pier and ready to go for a walk out to the end od mthe pier.

The sand slopes out toward the horizon at  about 6 degrees downhill.

     Have you tried changing the sea bed contour so that it levels off just beyond the end of the pier?  (As opposed to continuing to slope downward)

yes. It looks the same as the first image but less blach showing at the end.

     Ah, sorry.   I re-read your first post and just got the p-node reference.  Hence the sloping contour.

     The black area bothers me;  is the camera seeing void space between the bottom edge of the skydome and the perimeter of the terrain?  If so, you may need to make an extension skirt (seawater-colored) to cover that gap.

     The darkening of the sand with depth sounds like a good idea.  I have to go update/restart/adjust my two old surplus workstations again (I'm hoping to put them in service as render cows), so I can't experiment with the idea right now, but your concept sounds feasible.  So does the high water limit on the beach, though getting the wet effect is always touchy in Poser.  Using the p-node as a discriminator should work, I just find it challenging to get a wet look in Poser.

I'm headed out to the park with my little one shortly, but as soon as I'm back I'll run some experiements if Bagginsbill hasn't come by and rescued you by that point. ^_~

The bottom half of the sky dome is black as it does not need to be other wise. Mainlybecause I want the gradient effect to end up as black.

I asked Ted a few days ago to help me out, but he is burried in day work. :-(

Hope he sees this post and is shamed into bailing me out. :-)~

Thought is to blend the sand shader with a darker colour.

Starting at the bottom the P scale determines how steep the slope is across the scene,

The add node is to shift the "water line" up or down

The pow is to try to get a smooth transition (may be a better function out there)

Hi iron Soul, thanks for the fast help. Looks like what  I want but I need to be able to use the sand image and sand displacement image. Where do I hook those two image nodes? Third pic from the top of this thread.

Must be said I am not a math guy.

Tom

Sand diffuse should plug into both color slots on the Blender. Displacement/bump should plug into their regular spots.

Have to go out for a few hours but will check back in when I get home. Thanks all for your help!

Tom

Hi Royston,

Thought you died. :-)

I have to leave, so hope you are still up in a few hours.

Thanks bud!

Tom

Changing the second value of the first Add node should raise and lower the 'waterline'. Testing some things and trying to get a nice gradient to black. 

Hana are you talking about ironsouls shader?

I tried a couple changes to the sand shader the math fuction right above the P Node.

No change. I am using a point light for the sun set at 125% Intensity with shadows turned on.

Here are my render settings.

Tom

I was, but I can't seem to duplicate his results.

Also still want to get the wet sand look.

Help me Bagginsbill, you're my only hope. :-)

Seriously all thanks for all the help so far.

Tom

Time to get some sleep. Please do not give up on helping me all of you.

I want this product to be as good as it can possibly be.

I think the sand is looking pretty good accept for the dark line needs to be  several feet lower. I by the way am using feet as my unit of measure.

Just can't figure out what setting to change to get the dark line to move lower. Also would like the dark line to be more subtle if that is possible.

Tom

What do I need to do to get the dark line lower?

Tom

Ah, problem of working across time zones, just woken up (7am here)

To get the stronger effect the Blending parameter needs to be set to 1 (my mistake) but also the other parameters need to be adjusted to match the change in Y across the scene. For example of large change in height the P scale will need to be much smaller - what the scale is doing is making the blender much less sensitive to change e.g. 1 P unit (0.1inch?) is very small so to reach 1 in the scene happens very quickly, dividing the P unit by 100 (i.e. 0.01) means it takes 100 units to reach 1 (max Blend value). Somewhere there is a post with the details on how long a poser unit is but I can never remember so all I do is give it an approximate value and then adjust the dial until it fits. If you see no change try using a much smaller P scale, if you see too much change try a bigger P scale.

Cross post

To get the dark line lower - try making the p scale smaller or if you're happy with the gradient try increasing the Add value.

Quote - To get the dark line lower - try making the p scale smaller or if you're happy with the gradient try increasing the Add value.

Sorry, meant make the Y value in the P node slightly smaller.

Should not have used the word scale in either post.

I've run out of time on this project, on account of having to go away for the next couple of days to spend time with my son. I'll post what i have so far and maybe somebody can finish it off?

I have a shader with three key parameters:

'Min height' : Controls the height at which the transition from dark colour to light colour begins.

'Max height' : The height at which the transition is complete

'Move up' : used to shift the whole calculation up or down in height

The larger the difference between 'Min height' and 'Max height', the more gradual the transition will be.

There are also two colour parameters to specfy the dark and light colours.

I'll post some examples ...

Tom: These nodes are to be added into the original shader you provided to me. I assume it's not proper to to distribute that as an matpose file here, or show the full shader in a screenshot. The Blender node simply gets plugged into where the PMC:Diffuse used to be plugged into.

I'm back on Sunday ...

Wow Thanks Royston.

Maybe if you are still around you could drop box it to me?

That way I will get it right.

Tom

I was actually moveing the water line but did not realize it as I was only changing the Add value 2 by 1/10s changed it to 3.5 and here is what I get.

Think the 0.02 value in the y parameter on the P node I suggested is too small for a 6 degree slope. You could try around 0.2 if you want the darker sand nearer the shoreline darker.

Is it possible to use the P Node to control the amount of displacement on the ocean the further away from shore it goes? In other words have less displacement by the shore line which is world zero and much more out to sea?

Tom

     I'm still working on resurrecting my two newly purchased (but old surplus) workstations, and will continue to for the rest of the day, but while having lunch I am able to peruse the forum on my lappy.

     Great work you've done on this project, guys!

     You can use the Z variable of the p-node to discriminate between water close to shore (Z value will be small) and distant water (Z will be high).  Personally, I would have the discrimination fall off fairly close to shore, so that some distance beyond the pier, the water settles asymptotically to a constant magnitude of displacement.

Glad you like the product.

Tom

Looks better now that I did that.

Would still love if anyone could help with the sand looking wet from the color line down and have the beach be dry from the water line upward.

Also added a bump map for the sand that is just a simple white dots on a black background image.

Unless someone has a suggestion from this final test image.

Regards, Tom

Bagginsbill made a sand shader some years ago, here is the link:

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?message_id=2635530&ebot_calc_page#message_2635530

But perhaps he has some fresh ideas, you have done a great job already.

best regards,

Bopper.