Animating white ocean surf

[yaschan]

Im looking into some ways of animating white foamy ocean waves hitting a rocky shore. It will be viewed from above and from quite a distance.

Hmm so perhaps, displacement map for the sea, but how about the white stuff?

[yaschan]

This is where I could take this so far.

But I want to make the ocean waves more strong, with foamy tops.
The sea is displaced subpatched plane.

How would you guys go on about doing it?

[yaschan]

What I really would like to do is to add another texture layer for the ocean and somehow control it so that it's only visible near the shore.. but how to do that? Nulls?

[lwanmtr]

Nulls, or even a gradient that is set to distance from object would work

[yaschan]

Im getting into the basics of surfacing (which I still haven't completely learned).
Say, I have the ocean surface in place, and additional layers controlled by nulls (Thanks Iwanmtr).

But now I would like to add a procedural texture which's transparency is controlled by the same nulls. I can add gradient and choose it's input parameter, which is Distance to Object. But how to make the procedural texture to get it's transparency from the gradient?

Sorry for such beginner question..

[lwanmtr]

Not a problem..

You place the gradient layer above the texture and set it to alpha..that will make the layer gets its opacity from the gradient layer.

[yaschan]

oh oh! Great! I will certainly try it out! Thanks! I will post screenshot.

[lwanmtr]

Good luck with it :)

[yaschan]

Here's where I'm now..

I need more realism to the rock and the waves.

Biggest problem is that this looks like miniature model. I need the shore look massive and like the camera is really in high altitude...

[lwanmtr]

Reducing the specular on the shore might help it to not look plasticy. Also adding a very fine bump (1mm or so) might help to spread the diffuse out a little.

[@NiM8R]

In order for the eye to be fooled into believing realism attempts, first try experimenting with a long lens on your camera. This may force out more depth perception. Second, why not place a size-known object into the scene such as a half sunken boat, or a group of birds. You know how sometimes in crime scene photos there's a hand-held ruler next to the object of interest to help the eye understand scale? Same principle. - Cheers!

[Weepul]

Adding some simple atmospheric depth might also help, some very slight blue fog - look in the Volumetrics panel. Also, your lighting doesn't look that realistic - are shadows even on? (Raytrace Shadows in the render options needs to be enabled.)

[yaschan]

Thanks for your ideas. I will certainly do. yes, shadows were off in that test render.

Half sunken boat is excellent idea! I will certainly do it, if I get the time to model it.

I also plan to do this scene with radiosity. I send a little a bit later version with the plane.

[Weepul]

In addition to white foam near the rocks, it would help the look a lot if the rocks looked wet, maybe a bit smoother or sandy near the waterline. You ought to be able to accomplish that using a gradient on the Y axis for masking.

[lwanmtr]

Depends on the terrain..there may not be a 'beach'..i can got to alot of local places where the rocks meet the water head on.