Ocean skyline noise

[stevesideas]

I'm using the Phoenix FD ocean texture within Phoenix. I've tried adjusting the skyline subdivs - lower subdivs just make the entire quality look worse - higher subdivs increase render times significantly and only reduce the noise but does not remove it.

I've tried adjusting mesh smooth but cannot see a lot of difference even when using values of 1000.

So now I'm at a loss about what I can do to have a nice looking near viewed ocean and have a nice skyline ocean without noise.

I've attached an image to show my issue:

[Ivaylo Katev]

the last 6 months we did multiple changes in the skyline rendering trying to make it smoother and faster. i suppose you are just using an old build.
currently it should look like the attached images
i made two images with subdivs 2 and 5
the triangle count of subdiv 2 was 11M, the total render time was 150 sec, where 25 sec were spend for the mesh build and 125 were spend for the rendering
the triangle count of subdiv 5 was 27M, the total render time was 190 sec, where 60 sec were spend for the mesh build and 130 were spend for the rendering.
and beside this you have additional option to use vray displacement with a plane.
the third image was made by wray displacement with 32 pixels triangle edge, the render total time was 240 sec, can't split it because vray calculates the displacemnt render time. you have to increase the edge, because the default value 4 is very slow. you have also to use half sharpnes of the texture to have the same result as phoenix (this may desire our attention it shouldn't be like this).
the triangle count was only 700k, that is very low compared to the phoenix displacement.

[Ivaylo Katev]

... and a reference

[stevesideas]

They look a lot better. I sent an email last night about accessing the latest nightly. Is there a chance someone could send me a link to this soon ?

EDIT: Looks like I have been sent an email. Thanks

[stevesideas]

Could you share the vraydisplacement settings and the max scale you used for the vray displacement version ? I have my max scale set up as meters. I have a 60000x60000 meter plane with the vray displacement mod. It needs to be this big to get the plane to the horizon. Unless of course I can use vrayplane ? I am animating oil platforms on this ocean and they are all to scale.

One other thing, is it possible to get these results with latest stable version of vray 2.4 ? I do not need nightly or vray 3.0 ?

[Ivaylo Katev]

my plane was 30 000 meters
and yes, vray 2.4 is ok.

[stevesideas]

Would you mind sharing the settings for the vray displacement mod and ocean texture ?

[ben_hamburg]

I think the reference image looks kind of noisy...

I´m always astonished to find nature so inedaquate after working too long in CG...like for example: Did you ever notice all the fireflies on a water surface...?

For the Vray settings:

Use vector displacement, 32px for edge length, texmap min and max values -100 and 100 and amount at 1 Unit (depending on your system units).

The settings for the ocean texture:
Leave everything at default and play around with values of 7-12 for Wind speed and detail, that should give you close results to the example from Ivaylo.

[stevesideas]

Ok. I'e tried your settings and still having issues. I've attached some images.

[stevesideas]

I had to bring the wave height right down otherwise it looked terrible. My system units are inches and the display unit scale is meters. Should I be working with system units at meters ?

[Ivaylo Katev]

yes, your suggested settings are correct. only forgot to mention the sharpness (must be 0.5), but i already did.
and the wind speed is 3 m/sec .
there is no crest control in the official build, and the default coherence is 0.5, so it must be zero like in the new default settings.

[Ivaylo Katev]

you can work with any system units, just leave the vray displacement amount one system unit, it is VERY important!

[stevesideas]

ok. I've used the settings you suggested and this is what I'm getting. If I reduce the wave height in the ocean texture I don't get anything like the definition you get in your images.

vray disp amount is: 1
Ocean sharpness is: 0.5
Velocity coherence is: 0

[Ivaylo Katev]

did you change the vray displacement amount parameter? i noticed in your screenshot that it is 1m, and you said that your scale is inches, that means you have 40 units displacement, not one
this parameter is a bit misleading. it is actually a multiplier, not the final displacement size. and you mentioned that you are using the wave height, not the wind speed. for easy use of the texture i recommend to use only the wind speed parameter to control the wave size, not the height!

[stevesideas]

and this is the same settings apart from wave height is now set at 0.02. Better but looks nothing like your lovely waves using this method.