Ocean scale and optimization question

[danio]

Hi all - I'm messing around with the Ocean shader after seeing PG's post on his blog. Great stuff!

I've run into two issues:

1 - I'd really like to use this as a normal map but I don't seem to be getting predictable results. Does anyone have any input on this? At best I end up getting kind of a blurry noise map. I saw another post on this but it just mentioned how displacement generally optimizes things - even still, I'd like to move away from displacement and use a vrayplane.

2 - What's the best way to adjust scale on this? I got some nice results but when I imported it into a scene with actual architectural elements I'm having trouble controlling scale. I tweak the 'tiling' but without much\any effect.

Thanks for any tips,

Dan

[danio]

I think I got the scale figured out. I'd still appreciate any feedback on optimizing normal map output though. Thanks!

[Ivaylo Katev]

flat is the problem with the ocean map, can you post some images?

[danio]

Here are the two images. I had to leave 'Vector' on for the normal to work. Otherwise I got a truly bizarre result.

Displaced would be fine but ultimately the only time you're going to be seeing this ocean in the renders I'm going to be doing will be from 100+ feet away. When I try that the render times are still long and the water seems to not have the detail I'd want. Ultimately this is about the viewing distance\feel I'm going for (photo by Nelson Garrido):



Correct, displaced result:



Normal attempt:



Moving 100' or so away with same displacement settings:



Changing the scale to '.1' and cranking up wind speed to 8mph I get closer to the look I want, still slow to start rendering. Doesn't quite look right either.

[danio]

The other reason I forgot to mention that I'd like to steer clear of displacement on this scene is I'd really like to use a vrayplane. It's going to be a high camera and a long viewing distance.

[Ivaylo Katev]

well, i see. the ocean texture is intended to be used as displacement, not as normal map. there is a small but important difference in the implementation. perhaps we can add an option to use it as normal map, but for now you can try to put the texture in an output texture and to remove the blue channel (make the blue curve horizontal line at level 0.5). this will give not the same result as the displacement, but will be better than your second image, at least it will remove the "dead" zones

[danio]

Ok - I will give that a try. I really appreciate the feedback. I've been doing a bit of experimenting with just standard procedural maps and the results are fine but I'd much rather use the phoenix ocean map. The results are very promising when using displacement. Pretty interesting problem - oceans are hard to get looking right.