Stormy ocean

[stefan bartram]

Hi
Is there anybody here that have tried to make a stormy/high waves ocean scene in phonix ? and may be could give a few tips etc. setup of phoenixFDOceanTex. I have done a couple scene now with more or less came ocean, thats all. My "problem" is that I will need a scene that last more than 3-4 seconds , like in movies etc. but a scene with about 800 frames, because it is the ship we need to show.
thanks Stefan

[ttdww]

I've been doing exactly this lately. I'll be glad to share tips, etc. My first initial comment would be that most default setups using OceanTex end up leading to crashing rollover waves which is probably not what you want. I had to RnD for a few weeks until I got the OceanTex strength just right so that it caused stormy, slow moving, slightly breaking, but not constant beach looking waves. This is how the sim ends up playing out after a few hundred frames:
http://vfxfactory.com/movies/StormyO...dPreview_A.mov
(you'll probably need to download the QT depending on your browser)

Once you get to about frame 200 in the sim, it pretty much holds this type of behavior.

Are you looking to do an endless ocean or just a localized camera-looking-down shot. In my opinion, it'll make a difference which direction you choose based on the shot type and camera position. My goal was to not use any render-time displacement or endless ocean and only have actual simmed storm waves.

[stefan bartram]

That looks great . Well I guess it will be endless ocean where I can take differet camera shot form. Simulation different ship. We are a ship design company ( www.knudehansen.com) . So there is a lot of simulations and 3d rendering. I have used RealFlow up until now, but they have not really developed the large ocean in hybrido. So we have given Phoenix a tried. I like the waves the ships generate in Phoenix much more than RealFlow.

[Paul Oblomov]

Well, me personally think, that oceantex is not suitable for creating such hirise waves. I think only guided sim is capable of doing such effect, but I wasn't able to use phx body force, to drive anything, except smoke/fire with objects. Tho, I was told somebody was more lucky, than me

[ttdww]

Hey Stefan,
Great looking image. Small world - I've done a ton of ship work for companies like Viking Cruises, etc: http://www.briandemetz.com/_/product.php

Roger that regarding doing an endless ocean. If you're going to do larger ocean swells (at least larger than your image shows), I'd suggest you do the swells procedurally with oceantex displacement and then do localized sim for the boat interactions and wake. It's not that it isn't possible, but it'll be quite a bit of RnD plus you'll need to match the crashing water sim with other sim boxes out to some distance. It's involved. Paul makes some good points about guiding larger swells. It has some challenges.

[rporter8555]

Greetings!
Would this work for you?
I added a weak wave force into the sim to improve hull interaction. Not very rough seas, but maybe enough to be interesting.

[rporter8555]

Here is the sim file for you to play with.
Ron

ship_sim.zip

[stefan bartram]

Thanks Ron , I will do that, here is my ocean material, I've haven't really had some time to play with it yet. TT how far are there between your waves ?

[rporter8555]

Here is frame 1100. Stable simulation with aur file size average 650mb. Ship is 512 feet long, and she pitches and rolls a lot. Scale is 1. One sim pass, no post.
Modified oceantex with distance map to keep the displaced water surface hugging close to the hull (Thanks Svetlin!). Foamtex with distance map for foam effects away from the ship but in sync with oceantex peaks, idea picked up from this forum.
Waveforce with small strength 0.2 in this shot, adds some surface movement and improved bow splash interaction. Strength could be higher, but affects only the sim container and the difference with infinite ocean eventually becomes obvious.

Something to think about for RnD: use two sims. First is main sim with waveforce for ship and wake. Second sim for "pure ocean", no ship interaction, using the same oceantex seed for timing but with higher displacement for the surrounding ocean to make the difference between the two less obvious. I wonder how well they would blend? Might have to use boolean cutter to avoid double displacement?
Ron

[stefan bartram]

You can easily use 2 renders . I use 2 renders in RealFlow. One hybrido for water under the splashes and foam (which is seperate layer in RF) and Realwave for the ocean as general , combine the 2 renders it in AfterEffects.
Distance map, can you explan that ?. By the way I can not simulate you file, well I can , but there show now water or foam up. The sim file is there and saved , just no water .

[rporter8555]

Ok, make sure the "Read Cache for Preview" is set to "Always". The data should appear in "Cache File Content".
I turn it off to speed processing the sim.

[rporter8555]

VRayDistanceTex is used to create a zone around selected geometry objects in the scene. This allows me to control the spacing between the ship hull and the PhoenixFoamTex features.
https://docs.chaosgroup.com/display/...RayDistanceTex

[stefan bartram]

Ahh thanks , its not a Phoenix thing . We normally use the maxwell render, but because of phoneix we started up with vray again , after many years with maxwell. I mean to see somewhere that you can set the wave length is that correct ?

[stefan bartram]

buy the way Ron, here are 2 pic that I easy put together in AF

[rporter8555]

The wave length is not a dimension that can be set directly, but is a result of the forces at work. Experiment with ship speed and high and low values of wave force with low detail oceantex in the waveforce, not in the render slot. Think about rapid experiments with a small grid at the bow, maybe covering a third of the ship length plus room in front for waves to develop.
The wave action shown by TTDWW is really good because the elevated waves will crash into the bow at the correct height and create realistic splashes and foams for great effect but this must be accomplished first and without the render-time high detail oceantex displacement map.
Once the ocean surface height and action is as desired, then animate the ship pitch and roll to time the ship reaction to the swells then run the simulation again for proper splash interaction with the hull surface. A camera looking out the bridge window should confirm the settings are realistic. On my destroyer, this step helped me move quickly from from stationary to realistic.
Then set the oceantex displacement and splashes and foam.
Hope this helps.