Water help

[Delta 0]

Hi all

would someone be so kind as to point me to a "how to make water" tutorial? Or give me some tips on making a beach around an island?

I've looked at the Level maker pdf from RSE, looked around these forums, tried Smart Tools, but I can't get my Island to have water that doesn't crash Igor.

Cheers

Del

[deleyt 0]

From the levelbuilder.pdf:

The bold areas are the important bits.

Water

To create dynamic water, the following must be done:

Create a surface for the water as a coplanar set of polygons in whatever shape is necessary.

This can be done by creating a spline and adding a normal, or copying polys from the ground and moving them upwards, or whatever method you are comfortable with.

Then apply a texture to it. This texture can use an alpha-channel.

The height of the water surface object should be such that a player cannot see under it when crouching in it in the game (EDIT: 70cm. or less works fine).

Do not tag this surface mesh in the Map Editor. In the RSB Editor, under the GAME tab, tag it as “Gunshot Transparent”, “Grenade Transparent” and “Water”. Then, give it a surface property of “Water”.

The surface underneath the floor must have a surface property of “sand”.

If created correctly, players should not be able to go prone in the water, ripples should appear as characters wade through it, and special effects should be generated when the surface is shot at with bullets or grendades.

[Delta 0]

I'm still not sure what to do.

Why, if the level.pdf says " don't tag this surface mesh in Map Editor", does it then go on to call it a floor?

Does that water need to be part of a room? and the sand? Does it need to be flat? Can the water be a plane cutting through the terrain?

any help wold be greatly appreciated.

Del

[Biro 0]

Don't tag the water in the map editor if it has been tagged in the RSB editor. That means if you use a water texture from the original GR or expansions, don't tag it.

The water has to be grouped with the room it's in. You don't actually need sand under the water, test different materials. The ground under the water doesn't need to be flat, but there should never be over 70cm between water level and ground level under water. This will make your characther go under water. Yes, the water can be a plane cutting trough the terrain.

[Delta 0]

still can't get it to work. Any newbie modders out there who have cracked this problem willing to help me out?

Please?

[|S&P|Papa6 0]

I just create a quad patch or clone my floor quad patch and then use the material editor to apply the texture to the patch and viola! water. I use the front view to keep the water plane shallow above my ground. [edited] raise the water plane on the z axis as you see fit.

Then I'll apply my displacement modifier to raise my ground out of the water as needed.

Edited August 26, 2004 by |S&P|Papa6

[deleyt 0]

You don't actually need sand under the water

I think you do. If you don't tag it as sand, the water-effects don't work properly.

Why, if the level.pdf says " don't tag this surface mesh in Map Editor", does it then go on to call it a floor?

You making it harder then it is, really. You're confusing two pieces of geometry.

There's the water plane and there's the groundsurface underneath the water.

The waterplane needs to be tagged in the RSB-editor as described in the .PDF. It doesn't get a floor-tag in the map-editor. In fact, you don't do anything at all with it in the map-editor.

The groundsurface underneatht the water needs to be tagged in the map-editor as "floor" and in the RSB-editor as "sand".

That's it.

Does that water need to be part of a room? and the sand? Does it need to be flat? Can the water be a plane cutting through the terrain?

Yes, yes, yes, yes.

[Delta 0]

ok. bum.

I'm very sorry to keep on with this , but I cannot get this to work. Could some one please check what I doing is ok. I'll run through what I've been doing to try and make water. I've given up on my Island map until I can get this basic one working:

1. Create scenecenter and shermanlevelheight as per levelbuilder pdf

2. Create Quadpatch 400m x 400m

3. Convert to Editable Mesh

4. tag it as a floor poly with Sand in mapeditor

5. add sand material rsb from D01 Beach

6. drag up one vertice to make conical hill

that's the ground made

7. create plane 400m x 400m

8. raise it 0.5m

9. tag it as water (not floor poly) in mapeditor

10. add water material rsb from D01 Beach

11. group water and sand as _1

12. export (ensuring all textures and roomlist are in map folder)

13. start Igor, make env file using CP02 Island, then saving to map folder

14. new mission, select isle.env

15 CTD

(if I don't make the water plane and export after step 6 everything works fine and I can make a mission and run it in GR.)

please take deep breath and realise that I am a super-newbie when it comes to making maps. I've got plenty of Max experience though.

any ideas will be greatly recieved

Del

[Biro 0]

13.5: Delete old .sht file, then restart Igor. Load up the enviroment you created.

[Delta 0]

13.5: Delete old .sht file, then restart Igor. Load up the enviroment you created.

Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you

I love you Biro and want to father your children

I can't express my feelings about this breakthrough well enough. Some of you will be saying "big deal" but for someone (newbie map maker) who has been trying to make water appear in his island map for a while this is a huge relie!

[BornToKill 0]

Also tagging your Floor as water (instead of sand) and then having a water level above gives you the water effects for explosions etc as normal but i found you could fall off walls without being wounded

a 15meter fall ended up wounded (Broken leg) a 5 meter fall no problem.

Edited September 6, 2004 by BornToKill_TAW