Vue 7 Water Editor Guide Part 1

Since the water editor posts of this blog is proving to be the most popular, I have decided to expand upon it over the next
couple of days with some short guides, mostly renders of the water and the settings that they took to create them. Todays
post will be extremes, i.e. settings as they are originally set as a control followed by one setting turned up to the max so that
the effect can be seen clearly.
Firstly a few things that should be noted, the water editor can only be used with an infinite plane of water and it is populated
with a meta water, it is opened simply by double clicking on the water surface or by right clicking on the water plane in the
layer menu and selecting edit.
The following menu is displayed (assuming you have default water selected as the texture)

This gives the following result. Please note that all renders are done with the default atmosphere for clarity.

Not particularly exciting, so lets have a look at those settings in a bit more detail.
Surface Altitude:
Surface altitude affects the Actual Height of the sea surface above the 0 X,Z co-ordinate, for example, if it is set to 100, it is
well above the ground plane, where as if you have it at 0 it will be resting on the ground plane.

Set to 0 Above

Set to 100 Above, Notice the position of the water element.

Displaced Water Surface:
This option creates a more realistic surface to the water by producing heights for the water and physically changing the shape
of the object, This looks more realistic than with just textured surfaces because it allows surfaces to show shadows and gives
extra depth. This is the same as adding displacement to, for example, a brick wall.
Bruno Memain pointed out that displaced water surface doesnt use displacement. It transforms the water plane (2 polys) into
an infinite procedural terrain (more than 2 polys ) This procedural terrain uses a set of nodes based on the open ocean
fractal node we know since Vue5. So it isnt as resources heavy as displacement, and since it is a procedural terrain, the closer
you are from the surface, the more detail you can see.
Examples below are of firstly non-displaced material and secondly displaced material, with the Overall Agitation cranked up to
100.

It should be noted that displacement takes longer to render and vastly increases the number of polygons in the scene, in the
second picture there are 7100000 polygons while in the first there are only 4.
Use Global Wave Control:
This is a setting which allows you to change the settings generically without going into editing the settings individually. In this
section, all images will be duplicate, firstly with displacement active and secondly without displacement.
When this setting is active, the overall agitation option is useable, however when you turn the global wave control off, the
Overall Agitation option is greyed, and the other advanced options are availiable.
Overall Agitation:
This is an option that uses preset settings to control the overall appearance of the water surface. Below are examples of the
overall agitation at setting 0%, 25%, 50%, 75% and 100%

0% With Displacement 2 Polygons

0% No Displacement 2 Polygons

25% With Displacement 2140000 Polygons

25% No Displacement 2 Polygons

50% With Displacement 2560000 Polygons

50% No Displacement 2 Polygons

75% With Displacement 3350000 Polygons

75% No Displacement 2 Polygons

100% With Displacement 7100000 Polygons

100% No Displacement 2 Polygons

Wind Direction:
Wind direction depicts the direction in which the waves will move towards as in nature, the example below is waves moving at 45
degrees and then also at 90 degrees. (Overall Agitation is set to 50% in both images, Displacement is on)

Wind Direction 45 degrees,

Wind Direction 90 degrees,

You can see that the direction of the waves has altered, This is probably best used when creating shorelines and objects with
waves moving towards them.
The following settings can only be used with the Global Wave Control deactivated
Wave Amount:
Wave amount depictes the quantity of waves that are present in the water plane, default is set at 1. Images below are firstly
with displacement and then without, the settings are 0, 1, 5, 10.

0 No Displacement

0 With Displacement

1 No Displacement

1 With Displacement

5 No Displacement

5 With Displacement

10 No Displacement
10 With Displacement

Height:
This depicts the height of the displacement that is enforced on the waves, thus the displacement option must be active. The
default value is 1, minimum is 0, the maximum is 100. Below are 6 pictures, set at 0, 20, 40, 60, 80 and 100

Height at 0: 0 Polygons

Height at 20: 2530000 Polygons

Height at 40: 3000000 Polygons

Height at 60: 3200000 Polygons

Height at 80: 3400000 Polygons

Height at 100: 3400000 Polygons

Height at 0 appears to cancel out the water altogether, which makes sense really as water cant have 0 height.
Wind Intensity:
Wind intensity appears to dictate the amount of lashing that the waves take, i.e. how much foam is present on top and how
agitated the surface of the water is.
The default value is 1. The following pictures use the values 0, 1 and 2. Non displacement mapping is first, followed by
displacement.

0 No displacement: 2 Polygons

0 With displacement: 2443000 Polygons

1 No displacement: 2 Polygons

1 With displacement: 3000000 Polygons

2 No displacement: 2 Polygons

2 With displacement: 3600000 Polygons

Agitation::
Agitation dictates how much swell, and current the water has, or.. how agitated the water is
The minimum value is 0.5, the maximum is 2.0, The images below show this set on 0.5, 1 and 2. Without Displacement is shown
first, with displacement is shown second.

0.5 No Displacement 2 Polygons

0.5 With Displacement 2 Polygons

1.0 No Displacement 2 Polygons

1.0 With Displacement 2 Polygons

2.0 No Displacement 2 Polygons

2.0 With Displacement 2443000 Polygons

Choppiness:
Choppiness dicates how choppy the water is, fairly self explanatory really. Choppiness is the number of small waves that appear
in the water in fashion similar to ^^^
so greater choppiness means the waves will be closer together, i.e. ^^^^^ lesser settings will result in ^ ^ ^ and so on..
Default setting is 0.5, minimum is 0, maximum is 1. Below are images of 0, 0.5 and 1, no displacement comes first, displacement
comes second.

0 No displacement

0 With displacement

0.5 No displacement

0.5 With displacement

1 No displacement

1 With displacement
The images that use displacement that appear blank are due to the lack of height, this part of a the guide however is to
illustrate what each of the options do from a default metawater layer.

Vue 7 Water Editor Guide Part 2

Firstly, thank you for your comments both in the forums and here, the are most pleasing and make the time spent worth while.
Foam will be explored in todays edition in the same manner as the other settings yesterday.
Global Wave control must be disabled before these settings can be changed.

Foam Along Coasts

These settings account for the amount of foam along the coastlines when there is an object present within the meta water. For
these images there will be a small island, not a very attractive one perhaps sitting in the middle of the ocean.
Amount
This accounts for the amount of foam that is present i.e. the density of the foam around the coast. The higher the value, the
greater the density of the foam. Default is 71 Maximum is 100%, Minimum is 1%. For clarity the Depth of Foam will be
cranked up to 50 to show results.

1% Displacement Off:

1% Displacement On:

25% Displacement Off:

25% Displacement On:

50% Displacement Off:

50% Displacement On:

75% Displacement Off:

75% Displacement On:

100% Displacement Off:

100% Displacement On:

Typical Depth
This accounts for the width of the foam away from the shore, i.e. how long the foam continues into the sea, the higher the

value, the further it continues.

Default is 0 Maximum is 100, Minimum is 0

0% Displacement Off:

0% Displacement On:

25% Displacement Off:

25% Displacement On:

50% Displacement Off:

50% Displacement On:

75% Displacement Off:

75% Displacement On:

100% Displacement Off:

100% Displacement On:

Foam Over Waves
This accounts for the amount of foam at the tips of cresting waves, or on swell.

Amount
This accounts for the density of the foam on the waves, the greater the value, the denser the material
Default is 25% Maximum is 100, Minimum is 0

0% Displacement Off: 2 Polygons

0% Displacement On: 1800000 Polygons

25% Displacement Off: 2 Polygons

25% Displacement On: 2000000 Polygons

50% Displacement Off: 2 Polygons

50% Displacement On: 2064000 Polygons

75% Displacement Off: 2 Polygons

75% Displacement On: 2068000 Polygons

100% Displacement Off: 2 Polygons

100% Displacement On: 2185000 Polygons

It is worth noting that the higher the value, the longer the render takes.
Coverage
This accounts for the amount of water that is covered by the foam, the greater the value, less water will be visible.
Default is 6% Maximum is 100, Minimum is 1

1% Displacement Off: 2 Polygons

1% Displacement Off: 2 Polygons

25% Displacement Off: 2 Polygons

25% Displacement Off: 2041000 Polygons

50% Displacement Off: 2 Polygons

50% Displacement On: 2008600 Polygons

75% Displacement Off: Polygons

75% Displacement On: 2100000 Polygons

100% Displacement Off: 2 Polygons

100% Displacement On: 2200000 Polygons

It is worth noting that the higher the value, the longer the render takes.

Hope this helps! More will come eventually relating to the Atmosphere Editor, Ecopainter, Texture Editor and the function
editor.
Any comments, suggestions, additions more than welcome! Please feel free to link to my site.