Does anybody have any tutorials they would like to share with me about how to make realistic beach images? When I make an image of water next to land, the water immediatly stops right when it hits the land. Is there a way to make the water gradually come up on the beach or something to make it more realistic? Thanx in advance -Adam

When I've done any pics dealing with a beach scene or waters edge I usually use terrains to make the water look that little less uniform. If you do a search for a post by me called "Lifes a beach..." and you'll see what I mean. I'd like to help with tut URL's but my books marks were nuked last time I had to reinstall 98 and only one I could find was, http://easyweb.easynet.co.uk/~jba/bigsite/wavetut1.html. Hope this helps :) Regards Eshal

I'm a genetically enhanced blonde...what's your excuse? ~Eshal~

Thanx Eshal. It is very helpful.

Try this: 1- Make one terrain for the sand with texture. Duplicate it, lower diffusion & ambience, incease spec. & reflection, and move it a bit up and towards the water. In the terrain editor, or better in a paint program, cut both terrains to get a common irregular border. You'll end up with the beach's dry and wet sand. 3- create a water plane and locate it bellow the dry/wet sand's border. 3- Make some very flat round terrains with curved rims. Those are for the water going up and down the beach. In a paint program create some noise around the rims to simulate froth; do the same over the top side - the PhotoShop sponge filter is very good for that. Apply those "water layers" to you beach using some superposition. Choose an altitude dependant texture and edit it to have white at the top, and wathever you are using for water at the bottom. 4- Create some very elongated ellipsoids and apply a volume cloud texture for simulating breaking waves. Sorry for not attaching an image here. They are at my home computer. Email me if you have any doubts.

There's another great site for beaches. Try: http://easyweb.easynet.co.uk/~jba/galcode/seaweed.html There's even a section on making a sea limpet.

I will give it a try

thank you so much nandus. I followed your tutorial and this is what my image looks like now: Hey Nandus, is it ok with you if I put this tutorial on my web page? I will crearly say it is by you. Thanx again Cresent: I didn't go to your site yet, but when I have time i will. Thanx -Adam

Great Adam! You got it right. Looks very good! You may also add some other smaller breaking waves (both in lengh and diameter) in front of the main one. Place them slightly divergent and at different distances from the sand as in real beaches. A good texture to use in the water terrains in front of the breaking waves is "Foamy water" (water mat. last one in the 3rd row). It takes longer to render but improves the realism. I'll be glad to have that tutorial at your web page. We can improve it in the future. I'll find some time to search my zips for some beach picts using that technique. Send me the URL. Nandus

I change the image a little. Tell me which one you like better, the above one or this: -Adam

Adam, The 2nd looks better. Perhaps a touch of green in the 2 waves like that shallow water, to simulate the water transp. Those palm trees are great! Nandus