Ocean Mesh blends less with higher Ocean subdivisions

[hunter_williams]

Here is the border area with the following settings. It blends pretty well but of course there is lots of flickering because of the low Ocean subdivsions.



Higher Ocean Subdivisions but the border is more pronounced:



Border Fade is at 100 (I've even upped it to 500 and 1000) but no difference.

Is there another setting I need to tweak to make it blend better at a higher Ocean Subdivision?

[hunter_williams]

Anyone have any thoughts?

[Svetlin.Nikolov]

Hey, we have code that is supposed to battle this problem, but seems like it's not holding up for your scene. Could you try is enabling Pure Ocean mode still results in the same problem? If yes, then could you tell me the number of voxels along X/Y/Z of the grid?

[hunter_williams]

Svetlin, I don't get the same issue using Pure Ocean.

In regards to the voxel count, is this what you are looking for?

[Svetlin.Nikolov]

Oh, so if there is a difference between pure ocean on and off, then I might be able to catch it in a simple scene here... Will keep you posted!

I see the Z size is 1153 voxel, so I can calculate the other sides from it as well, thanks!

[Svetlin.Nikolov]

Hm, dang, couldn't make it happen here with a modified ocean preset. Would it be possible to send over your scene without any of the caches or geometries in case they are secret - only the simulator, camera, lights and vray settings would be enough...

[hunter_williams]

Here you go Svetlin:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1iY8...ew?usp=sharing

[hunter_williams]

Did that example I shared help?

[Svetlin.Nikolov]

Thank you, got it now! I had to take an unexpected day off. Let's see...

[Svetlin.Nikolov]

Hmm, the camera in the scene is not the same as in your screenshot, but this issue is quite probably camera-dependent.

I tried frame 1 and frame 2441 but both seem to render fine without a noticeable difference between the inside and the outside of the simulator.

If you do get the issue with the attached scene, can you tell which frame do you render so I can do the same as you?

[hunter_williams]

Here is the stripped down version of the actual scene:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1iY8...usp=share_link

Render at frame 885:



I also just upgraded to Phoenix 5.10.00 and V-ray 6.00.03 btw.

[Svetlin.Nikolov]

Ah, thank you! Reproduced the issue! Starting to look for the reason and if it can be worked around with options or if it's something that would need changes in the code...

[Svetlin.Nikolov]

Oh, hold on - looks like you are using a Phoenix version before the Ocean Border Fade option appeared in the mesh rollout, and in your scene this option acts as if it is 1%, while 10% or more would certainly make it look better. Perhaps you are using Phoenix 5.01 official or older. Please try Phoenix 5.10 and look for the new option between the Ocean Level and the Ocean Subdivisions options - the one below the Shadow Step % affects only the volumetric render modes and is in units instead.

[Svetlin.Nikolov]

The surface inside the container really does look more rough than outside the container. The Wave Force correctly uses an ocean texture with a low level of detail so it doesn't create small scale noise. One speculation I have is that perhaps the Steps Per Frame need to be raised in order to get a smoother mesh (before the displacement is applied), to 2 or 3 perhaps. I will let it run overnight and see if this helps...

[Svetlin.Nikolov]

Ah sorry, the above was not the smartest idea - you don't really need to simulate with 2 or 3 steps per frame, making the simulation 2 or 3 times slower respectively.

Instead, in order to smooth out the liquid mesh before the displacement, you could use the Grid Channel Smoothing from the Input rollout - enabling the smoothing for the Liquid channel and setting the three fields after that to all zeroes - Threshold, Similarity, Random Variation, so the smoothing would be the strongest.

By combining this smoothing and the increase in the Ocean Border Fade % option seems to make for a smooth transition. Please try and ping me.