Making a good picture for flowing water?

[Armadillo of Doom]

Following the excellent guide by Snipergen a prefab that I picked up somewhere, I easily added a moving texture. Problem is however, both of the pictures I used look really crappy
http://i249.photobucket.com/albums/gg204/Immortal-D/Best of TF2/waterproblem1.jpg
http://i249.photobucket.com/albums/gg204/Immortal-D/Best of TF2/waterproblem2.jpg
The first is the default water from Hydro, and the second is a random picture I found. I can post the vmf if it will help. How the heck do you create a water picture/texture that's actually light, see-through, foam, etc.?

 

[Spike]

Following the excellent guide by Snipergen a prefab that I picked up somewhere, I easily added a moving texture. Problem is however, both of the pictures I used look really crappy
http://i249.photobucket.com/albums/gg204/Immortal-D/Best of TF2/waterproblem1.jpg
http://i249.photobucket.com/albums/gg204/Immortal-D/Best of TF2/waterproblem2.jpg
The first is the default water from Hydro, and the second is a random picture I found. I can post the vmf if it will help. How the heck do you create a water picture/texture that's actually light, see-through, foam, etc.?

I can make you a nice model for a waterfall this weekend if you want to.

 

[Armadillo of Doom]

Oh cool Honestly, I was just looking for a decent image that I can turn into a texture, but that works too, lol. I used cordon for the screens, but I can provide you w/ pics of the full area if you like.

 

[laghlagh]

You want it to be seamless? and half transparent?

 

[Armadillo of Doom]

You want it to be seamless? and half transparent?

That would probably help too. Here's what I've got so far, taken mostly from the aforementioned prefab;

"LightmappedGeneric"
{

<dx90
{
"$fallbackmaterial" "water/water_hydro_test_dx80"
}

"%tooltexture" "dev/tfwater_normal"
"%keywords" "tf"
"%compileKeepLight" 1
"$nocull" 1


"$basetexture" "water/water_hydro_base"
"$bumpmap" "water/tfwater001_normal"
"$normalmap" "water/tfwater001_normal"
"$translucent" "1"
"$surfaceprop" "water"
"$envmap" "env_cubemap"
"$envmaptint" "[.2 .2 .2]"
// "$envmapcontrast" ".5"

"$abovewater" "1"

"$fogenable" 1
"$fogcolor" "{51 43 13}"
"$fogstart" "-100"
"$fogend" "400"

"$normalmapalphaenvmapmask" "1"
"$bumpframe" "0"

"Proxies"
{
"AnimatedTexture"
{
"animatedtexturevar" "$bumpmap"
"animatedtextureframenumvar" "$bumpframe"
"animatedtextureframerate" 30.00
}
"TextureScroll"
{
"texturescrollvar" "$baseTextureTransform"
"texturescrollrate" "15"
"texturescrollangle" "270.00"
}
}
}

 

[cornontheCoD]

There's a big tutorial on interlopers that describes how to make it semi-transparent, etc. if that helps

 

[Armadillo of Doom]

Thanks for the info Coron That should really help make the water look less blocky.

 

[Spike]

Can you tell me the size of the waterfall?

 

[Armadillo of Doom]

Right now the vertical part is 384x32x576. Since it's based around a displacement rock wall, the size can be easily changed as needed. Would be nice to have a river thing flowing above and behind it, but can live without.

 

[Spike]

I can give you a .vmt I made for the wave, you can adjust the scroll and normal texture and stuff. Copypaste it:

"Refract"
{
"$model" 0
"$scale" "[1 1]"
"$refractamount" "0.5"
// "$refractamount" "0.0"
"$refracttint" "{181 236 250}"
"$reflecttexture" "_rt_WaterReflection"
"$reflecttint" "[1 .95 .85]"
"$reflectamount" "0.75"
"$envmap" "env_cubemap"
"$envmaptint" "{57 132 162}"
"$bluramount" "0.3"
"$dudvmap" "dev/water_dudv"
"$normalmap" "dev/water_normal"

"$surfaceprop" "water"
"$bumpframe" "1"
"$nocull" "1"

"Proxies"
{
"AnimatedTexture"
{
"animatedtexturevar" "$normalmap"
"animatedtextureframenumvar" "$bumpframe"
"animatedtextureframerate" "25.00"
}

"TextureScroll"
{
"texturescrollvar" "$bumptransform"
"texturescrollrate" .3
"texturescrollangle" 120.00
}
}
}

EDIT: the texture is for the flowing river, if you want to use it for the waterfall (I'm making a model for it, but if you want it brush based you can take it) you should modify the scale line to:

"$scale" "[1 X]"

With X bigger than 6. This will make the texture to lengthen and will look more like a waterfall

 

[Armadillo of Doom]

That is awesome, thanks for the help m8 Gotta get my school stuff done right now, but I'll test this out soon as I can. I also want to see pictures of your model asap

 

[cornontheCoD]

I can give you a .vmt I made for the wave, you can adjust the scroll and normal texture and stuff. Copypaste it:

"Refract"
{
"" 0
"" "[1 1]"
"" "0.5"
// "" "0.0"
"" "{181 236 250}"
"" "_rt_WaterReflection"
"" "[1 .95 .85]"
"" "0.75"
"" "env_cubemap"
"" "{57 132 162}"
"" "0.3"
"" "dev/water_dudv"
"" "dev/water_normal"

"" "water"
"" "1"
"" "1"

"Proxies"
{
"AnimatedTexture"
{
"animatedtexturevar" ""
"animatedtextureframenumvar" ""
"animatedtextureframerate" "25.00"
}

"TextureScroll"
{
"texturescrollvar" ""
"texturescrollrate" .3
"texturescrollangle" 120.00
}
}
}

EDIT: the texture is for the flowing river, if you want to use it for the waterfall (I'm making a model for it, but if you want it brush based you can take it) you should modify the scale line to:

"" "[1 X]"

With X bigger than 6. This will make the texture to lengthen and will look more like a waterfall

would this code work for normal flowing water if I modified it a bit? I am trying to get flowing water, but not a waterfall. and would I use my own texture or a copy of valve's with the new vmt?

 

[Spike]

would this code work for normal flowing water if I modified it a bit? I am trying to get flowing water, but not a waterfall. and would I use my own texture or a copy of valve's with the new vmt?

Of course it will work for normal flowing water.

And I don't understand your second question. The VMT I've posted uses valve bumpmaps

 

[Apom]

I used that vmt in one of my maps (well, not exactly that one, there were probably some differences). It caused huge FPS drops whenever used in an "active" area, so take care.

 

[Spike]

Here you have the waterfall, need to reescale it, do you like it in that way?

 

[Master]

That waterfall definately look good. Is it a model or moving texture? I'm looking for a very good quality moving texture that doesn't interfere very much with the FPS but could be used in the skybox maybe, or in the map itself. Skybox would be my first choice as I would like to make very huge waterfalls surrounding the area.

 

[Cameron:D]

That does look very good!

 

[Spike]

That waterfall definately look good. Is it a model or moving texture? I'm looking for a very good quality moving texture that doesn't interfere very much with the FPS but could be used in the skybox maybe, or in the map itself. Skybox would be my first choice as I would like to make very huge waterfalls surrounding the area.

It's a model with a water-like texture. The texture is very expensive, it would eat some FPS.

 

[Armadillo of Doom]

Spike my friend you are awesome, lol. Soon as finals are over I'll be testing out your vmt. As for the model, it certainly looks good, but more like a gentle stream coming down. I imagine a waterfall has having some white foam spray and visible lines b/c of the force that is moving it. Keep up the good work m8 Cuz that's certainly better than I could ever manage, lol.

 

[Spike]

Here's the final .vmt (I edited it a little bit so you can use it on brushes and it's aligned vertically to the texture movement.

"Refract"
{

"$scale" "[1 1]"
"$refractamount" "0.5"
// "$refractamount" "0.0"
"$refracttint" "{181 236 250}"
"$reflecttexture" "_rt_WaterReflection"
"$reflecttint" "[1 .95 .85]"
"$reflectamount" "0.75"
"$envmap" "env_cubemap"
"$envmaptint" "{181 236 250}"
"$bluramount" "0.2"
"$dudvmap" "dev/water_dudv"
"$normalmap" "dev/water_normal"

"$surfaceprop" "water"
"$bumpframe" "1"
"$nocull" "1"

"Proxies"
{
"AnimatedTexture"
{
"animatedtexturevar" "$normalmap"
"animatedtextureframenumvar" "$bumpframe"
"animatedtextureframerate" "25.00"
}

"TextureScroll"
{
"texturescrollvar" "$bumptransform"
"texturescrollrate" .8
"texturescrollangle" 270
}
}
}


Remember to buildcubemaps or the texture would look weird (strange blue colours).

For the foam, I could put a foam material inside (there's one made by mapper shirokko which I used on cp_pirate_island) , so It would look like refracted foam. And maybe some particle waterfall effects (which are already made by Valve but I never get it working )