Todd Burch wrote:

> Could anyone out there give me an idea as to how to animate water?
>          I was also wondering if anyone knew how to simulate the ripples or
> disturbances in an animation in which a drop of water falls into a
> puddle.
>         Thanks. Any help would be much appreciated.
>         -Todd Burch
>

I have attempted to animate water with reasonable results, but it involves an
extra rendering for each frame.  I used a flat plane with a rippling texture
using a plain black-to-white color map. I translated the texture a little bit
for each frame in the direction I wanted the water to flow, and a little in the
+z to randomize it a bit and make it 'move'.  After rendering each pattern, I
shelled out to DOS and ran a little batch file to change the image file name to
that of a height field used in the actual scene, then render the scene.  The
result is a new height field for each frame, each a little different the the
last, to simulate fluid in motion.  I have also used a similar process for
animating a motion picture TV screen, only using an image map for the screen
instead of a height field.

Post a reply to this message