Wave material?

[robcat2075]

Can anyone point me to a PRJ from any version of A:M that shows the Wave material behaving as expected?

[detbear]

RC,

 

I think it worked in 15F. But only for still images and only for cylindrical motion. I never could get it to achieve realistic results. Just a semi-realistic stand in.

[Rodney]

Can anyone point me to a PRJ from any version of A:M that shows the Wave material behaving as expected?

 

 

I played with some wave materials a few weeks ago.

If you can describe what that entails I might be able to come close to hitting the target.

 

Edit: Make sure you adjust the Propagate setting.

 

But only for still images and only for cylindrical motion.

 

I'm pretty sure I animated the material in the Chor.

Of course, trying to animate it in the material won't work... not sure about in an Action but that (theoretically) should work.

[robcat2075]

Do you have a PRJ that makes ripples radiate out from the center in motion?

[Rodney]

Here's a quick, no frills example:

 

Note that I've made the wave attribute part of a gradient but I don't believe that is required.

That is just what my mouse clicked together.

 

I also set the material to bump (displacement didn't work very well).

 

 

Also, I created this before I read your response so the ripples radiate inwards.

Easy to reverse that though.

untitled 000.mov

WaveProject.zip

[Rodney]

Here's another project file that uses a more generic wave material:

 

Added:

Silly me.

I forgot that displacement is dependent upon geometry.

A one patch mesh doesn't have a lot of geometry to displace!

untitled 000.mov

Wave2.zip

[robcat2075]

I'm afraid neither of those is behaving properly. The ring pattern in those is scaling, which is incorrect.

 

In true waves the distance between wave crests will not change as they move outward.

[robcat2075]

there was a time when this material would produce smooth ripples (not bands) radiating from the center, with new ripples forming in the center as the old ones moved outward.

 

I've tried it back to v10.5 and i can't get that effect which is THE effect it is intended for.

[Rodney]

Well... why didn't you say so in the first place.

 

Stay tuned. Comin' attcha...

[robcat2075]

I just tried v9.5

 

That's like A:M after a transporter malfunction.

[Rodney]

I may have to call it a fail on my end.

Just when I think I have the settings understood... I lose track of where I am.

 

There is a potential workaround for some scenarios to be found in the material(not the wave attribute)'s scale setting.

From most angles though it looks exactly like what is happening... zooming in.

 

I thought I was getting close with the attached but there is still length expansion.

morewave.mov

[NancyGormezano]

I dug up the water project from the CD that came with the book "the A:M 2000 handbook" by Jeff Paries (page 532 in my copy). I've never played with the wave material before - I rendered this in 17g/64.

 

In the first movie, there is a water plane that has 4 instances of the wave material (each centered at the four corners of the plane), so that interference wave patterns occur. The plane is opaque and has spec set. There is 1 sun light. There was no animation of any of the properties of the wave material - apparently it animates itself!

 

In the 2nd movie - the same water plane is made 75% transparent and there is another plane added underneath (with a decal on it) - it has a more pleasing effect - the decal could be anything. Obviously one can play with the settings, and placement of the wave material to make something mo' purty.

 

the project that I've uploaded should generate the first movie.

2000CDbook.mov

2000CDbook75transparen250whitespecwhitesun.mov

WaterAM2000CDbook.prj

[Rodney]

There was no animation of any of the properties of the wave material - apparently it animates itself!

 

At first It did appear that the wave material was time based (animating itself) without adjusting any settings.

I was following that theory but then I'd go to adjust a setting and no waves would move... until I went back and animated the settings. Gah!

 

Thanks Nancy!

[detbear]

That never seemed to work well in any of my scenes because it wasn't easy to control or fit into the shot.

 

Then again, I certainly didn't spend a massive amount of time on it. Maybe for still images it could be composited in somehow.

[robcat2075]

Thanks for finding that Nancy.

 

I guess I'll have to find my v5 CD to test that PRJ, the current versions aren't doing it right.

 

Those patterns should be moving outward and a new wave should be formed in the center to replace the one that just left and it all should be moving a whole lot faster.

[robcat2075]

Nancy can you post the original version of that PRJ, not resaved in v17?

[markw]

I don't know if this is of any help here in this discussion but Emilio has this Windows only Waves/ripples plugin still on his site.
Looks quite cool, shame it's Windows only. Oh well…
http://www.moscafilms.com.br/emilioleroux/amplugins_wavemachine.html

[NancyGormezano]

Nancy can you post the original version of that PRJ, not resaved in v17?

The original project required as an exercise, to drag the 4 materials to the plane model & manipulating the translate properties of the 4 wave materials to position them at the 4 corners of the plane before rendering. The properties were already set.

 

I've also uploaded a 2nd project (waterB) which I did not look at.

 

From the instructions, it sounded like waterB had 2 planes, and made the water plane transparent.

 

For 2nd project (waterB) the properties for the wave materials was such that all had to be changed to:

 

.25 for amplitude, 100 for damping, 0 for propagate, 3 for cycle.

 

and in bottom left wave length = 97, upper right =95, upper left =93, bottom right =97

 

I also uploaded the video they had for the result of water B project. meh.

Water.prj

Water B.prj

Clear Water.mov

[robcat2075]

Thanks, Nancy!

 

Here is something I got going in v8 with the materials in the PRJ Nancy provided. This is something like the "wave" effect i remember from long ago.

 

rippleframes.mov

 

 

To get that i had to render every 15th frame out of 2 minutes of Chor time and then speed them up to 30fps in Quitcktime.

 

It should be faster than that so there's still something about the settings I need to understand better.

[robcat2075]

I don't know if this is of any help here in this discussion but Emilio has this Windows only Waves/ripples plugin still on his site.

Looks quite cool, shame it's Windows only. Oh well…

http://www.moscafilms.com.br/emilioleroux/amplugins_wavemachine.html

 

Thanks for finding that!