Hey guys, whats the best way to get a good splash effect??? Like a dolphin jumping out of the water...and you have the water splashing around him and then have the ripples of where he's jumping out of.

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=31057&Start=37&Artist=Alleycat169&ByArtist=Yes

Here's a good example of how to do it. Basically I use a lot of terrain models to get this effect. To make a simple ripple on terrain simply create a terrain and enter the terrain editor. Use the "blob" button to create a mound that fills the frame. Using the Airbrush, adjusting the altitude of the brush to zero and making your brush size slightly smaller than the original mound, "paint" the center of the mound to lower it to zero. You should now have what looks like a crater. Raise the altitude of the brush and reduce the size slightly. Paint another mound in the center of the crater and repeat the lowering step to hollow it out. Repeat this until you have made several rings within each other. That will be your smooth ripple effect. For the splash, create another terrain and repeat the first two steps. This time you want to click on the erode buttom to create some ridges and jagged edges. This will be your splash. Use the terrain clipping feature to chop off the square edges, or group with a negative boolean. To get an angled splash, exit the editor and rotate your splash terrain by 45 degrees and stretch it. Now rotate it back until the base is even with the water plane. The "cone' should now angle out of the water. Place within your smooth ripple and texture both to match your water plane. Duplicate the cone and stretch it a bit higher and add a cloud texture like "cotton ball 2" to add some mist. Create a couple of dozen small spheres and disperse them around the cone using the 3D, size disperse to create errant splashes. After I've rendered I usually play around the splash some more in Photoshop with a smudge tool to get rid of hard edges and add "white caps". It's a lot of work but the effect looks great. the most important thing to remember is "have fun" and experiment until you are happy with the result. good luck.

Thanks a lot man, the effect is awesome!!

Hey, you're welcome. Glad I could help.

Hey man, I kind of encountered a problem...maybe my stupidity, i don't know. But it worked the first time with the ripple effect and all...but now it won't. I clcik the terrain, i hit the edit button, i make the blob, I didn't quite BUY Bryce so I have no idea what the altitude of the brush is ( I just set that small thing with the little red square all the way down), then i make the brush set on the paint effect, and make it about a tad bit smaller than the blob. Then I click...nothing happens. Also, I have the grey circle (below the brush size) set all the way to white. Sorry if i'm stupid man...

Set your brush behavior to "Elevation" not "Paint Effect". I used the term "paint" to describe the action, not the brush setting. I did buy Bryce, so I knew that ;-).