112 réponses à ce sujet

[KlatchainCoffee]

I am building a sea-voyage based campaign and am wondering if there is anything out there for simulating big sea storms.

In particular I'm looking for something like large sea waves that seem to engulf a ship in the middle of an ocean storm. This could either take form of an animated 'walkable' placable (something like existing water cover placable) or something akin to fog, rain or snow effect placables.

I would be very grateful for any information on whether something like this has been done and is accessible or, if not, how complicated it would be to create from scratch.

Thanks in advance!

[OldTimeRadio]

KlatchainCoffee wrote...

I am building a sea-voyage based campaign and am wondering if there is anything out there for simulating big sea storms.

In particular I'm looking for something like large sea waves that seem to engulf a ship in the middle of an ocean storm. This could either take form of an animated 'walkable' placable (something like existing water cover placable) or something akin to fog, rain or snow effect placables.

I would be very grateful for any information on whether something like this has been done and is accessible or, if not, how complicated it would be to create from scratch.

Thanks in advance!

I haven't seen anything like what you're describing.  The only effects I'm aware of are smaller scale effects which are really just emitter effects at the base of a ship, where the boat meets the water.  So...this package on the Vault has some ship tiles where you can turn on some animations on the tile and it'll make those effects.  Look at ReadMe_Galleons.htm and check out the section titled "A Quick Note".  Maybe someone else knows of something closer to what you're thinking of.  As far as "complicated" goes...it depends on whether you know how to edit models for NWN.

...or, if not, how complicated it would be to create from scratch.

(looks around furtively, lowering his fourth cup of coffee with a shaking hand)

"Did somebody say...from scratch?!?!" 

If you don't do 3D custom content in NWN, the rest of this message won't be terribly useful to you.  There will be a nice picture and a video to click on and watch but that's about it.  The rest of this is for other CC makers here who might want to take a stab at this or if you do know your way around GMax/Max.  It would be awesome if you were a custom content creator because you could make one heck of an environment for your players to ride around in during the adventure.

To create an effect specifically like the one you describe, there are a few minimum requirements, IMO.  First, the ship has to pitch forward and back like it's rocking on the seas. Second, there has to be some big splashing going on when it pitches down into the oncoming waves.  And third, it helps if you have the impression of the ship moving forward, into the waves.

So:
1. Ship pitches forward and back
2. Big splashing going on when it pitches into the waves
3. Gives the impression of moving forward

I'll explain how to do the first aspect from scratch and give some ideas how to address the other two afterward.

Since the game engine doesn't allow a player-walkable ship to pitch like that (and still remain believeable), the solution is to make everything else pitch to and fro and let the human mind fool itself, or hopefully fool itself, into believing it's the ship that's doing the pitching.  One way you could achieve the effect is by making a false world out of a sphere and encapsulate the player in it.

Like this:


This is a super basic implementation of how that would work.  Just need a few parts- here's how their hierarchy in Max:


plc_a01 - My model name.  I always replace the Armoire appearance when I test.
animdummy - Dummy node, used to animate the pitching
false_world_sphere - Skybox.  A sphere with a sky map applied (a sphere map) whose normals are flipped so the texture is on the inside of the sphere instead of the outside.  I left it at the default number of segments (32?) and used sphere mapping with a sphere map of a sky I found online.  Radius is 2500cm, which is fine for the default camera.
ocean_surface - The...(wait for it)...surface of the ocean.  This was a circle shape I made in Max, giving it a radius of 2600cm, which makes it slightly larger than the skybox, whcih is fine.  I don't want to run out of ocean.  To turn it from a circle shape into a flat circle, I just applied the Extrude modifier without any sort of special settings and that fills it in, turning it into a disc from a circle.  I then applied a sea texture I found online.

This is the basic setup for the effect and how it would work.  As you can see, the false world skybox and the surface are both children of the animdummy so they're connected to it and whatever the animdummy does, they'll do.  Since I'm doing this quick proof-of-concept as a placeable (more on different ways to do this a little further down), changed the time configuration to 149 frames (since frame 0 counts, that gives me 150 frames or 5 seconds for my cycle), then I created a default animation on the placeable and give it a frame range of 0 to 149.

I click on the Key Filters button, make sure Rotation keys are the only thing checked, click the Auto Key button next to it, and making sure animdummy iis the only thing selected, click on the key icon to lay down a key at frame 0.  Move the animation slider to frame 38 (about 1/4th of 150) and rotate the animdummy 2 degrees, pitching it forward and since I'm in Auto Key mode, the animation keys are laid down for me as soon as I move or rotate something.  Then to frame 75, rotating the animdummy back up 2 degrees to where it was.  Move the slider to frame 112, pitch the animdummy up 2 degrees, then turn off autokey.  Finally, I select the first frame of the animation and, hodling down the SHIFT key (copy), drag it to the very last frame.  That gives me a full pitch cycle.  Playing it, I can see the world and ocean move as I like.

And that's that!  Here's what it looks like:


This is the tame version but you should get the idea.  Increase the pitch and you might even make a player or two queasy.  How's that for immersion!  So that's how to achieve the first part of the effect...from scratch.

That still leaves us with splashing from the bow and creating the illusion of movement.  Some ideas on how to do those:

Splashing: Emitters using a detonation event would seem to be the way to go here.  Might run into problems getting the emitters in just the right places to line up with the bow of the boat since we're doing this as a placeable.  See "Bonus Points", below.  Will require tweaking, as emitters always do, to make sure they go off at just the right time in the pitch cycle as well.

Illusion of Forward Movement: There are a couple of  different ways to approach this.  Remember, we can't move the ship so everything else has to do the moving, etc.  I can think of three ways, from easiest and do-able to craziest and hypothetical:
1. Use the "conveyor belt" method such as that which is used on for the moving chain in tsw01_a02_03.mdl from the Steamworks tileset.
2. Use animesh to animate the textures and or verts to give the illusion of movement.  Really, this is about making the texture scroll.  See Baba Yaga's excellent demo of the effect here and Bannor Bloodfist's tutorial on reproducing the effect here.
3. Using skin mesh and bones to simulate the movement of the waves.  Bone objects would act as waves, moving under the surface of the non-moving static ocean and giving the impression that the waves were moving "through" the texture, deforming it as they went.  I believe it would work this way.  If not, bones which just moved up and down, instead of laterally, could be used and timed in such a way that they could give the illusion of a "moving" wave.  As in , in a grid of bone objects, the far right side rise up, then down.  As they go down the next column of bones move up then down.  And so on.

The first of those three gets the job done and probably is as good as anything the other two would net you.

Bonus Points: This effect is nice but you're fighting against the existing water plane.  If your pitch is too much, the pitching water plane you made will dip down enough that you see the real water plane that's part of the tiles whcih surround the ship.  The solution to this is either raise the pitching water plane you made (you can just adjust the placeable's height in the toolset), reduce the pitch or...make a new tileset with the pitching water plane built in.  I like the idea of doing this as a tileset because it gives you a lot more control over the scene.

Modifié par OldTimeRadio, 22 mars 2012 - 05:29 .

[nwnsmith]

I'm sorry but every now and then I get overwhelmed with how talented and fun this community is !!!!

[Karvon]

Wow, I'd be happy with just a simple hak for that rocking motion

Karvon

[ShadowM]

I have made some wave placables I never got back to making the crest emitter but they turn out real nice. Interesting on how you did the rocking. I get it put together and release it and some other stuff around spring break early April.

[NWN_baba yaga]

Yeah, OTR! You are unbelievable fast and good in creating new environmental stuff. Its always a pleasure and inspiration to see your realizations of ideas:) The shorewaves from ShadowM are also very cool. I used them heavily for an area in my module.

[KlatchainCoffee]

I have to chime in with the other responses. I've been an admiring 'lurker' in this community for a while and can only confirm once again that you guys are amazing!

Thanks for a quick and extremely helpful reply, just the stuff in that video is already so much better than nothing. This is a long sea voyage involving many land and underwater adventures, but it would lose much without at least some degree of realism of the water in the middle of the ocean.

I had already contemplated how movement of a walkable ship can be simulated and concluded that providing the illusion of everything else moving is the only way. Several 'false world' spheres can be created for 'normal', 'windy/rough' and 'very stormy' seas. From your video it seems to work quite well. Splashes of water and a possible wake line would indeed be bonuses.

Creating a tileset for this should not be too difficult, as only one tile type would be essential for this effect [not counting all the possible ship tiles that could be included in it].

Having loads of ideas an some amount of artistic skill, I would really love to create some 3D custom content for NWN if I ever have the time to learn the right tools. I have to say that browsing this forum gave me a good deal of inspiration to make an affort and find the said time.

I will definitely look into them shorewaves as well - they've beenon my 'wishlist' for this mod for a while now. Thanks![smilie]../../../images/forum/emoticons/grin.png[/smilie]
upd: Having had a browse through the vault would appreciate a link to the shorewave hak.
(I actually have a really old hak with small-ish animated shorewave placables, but they only work in the toolset - when you place them and completely disappear when you run the mod. )

Modifié par KlatchainCoffee, 22 mars 2012 - 09:33 .

[Vipre]

That is one of the coolest things I've ever seen done to NWN. Unreal.

[Vivienne L]

Wow, awesome stuff!!
ShadowM, your shorewaves are awesome but they were a little hard to find (they are yours, right; the author's name is different there!); here's the link for anybody who's interested

Shorewaves

KlatchainCoffee, you're going to have to 'unclick' the static button in the properties of this placeable for it to show up in the game!

OldTimeRadio, that 'sphere animation' is awesome!!  I'm feeling seasick now:blink:!

Modifié par vivienne.l, 23 mars 2012 - 04:43 .

[Rolo Kipp]

<holding out his own shakey hands..>

Add in some scripted camera movement (I think the storm scene in Relbonian Chronicles did this very well) and you have some truly great "immersion".

(ex-salvage sailor here) I think I still have somewhere some incredible footage of huge ice-choked waves sweeping some crew men overboard while the Coast Guard were trying to air-lift them off a crabber pinned to the rocks on St. Paul Is. That sort of elementally monster wave smashing into a ship and sweeping it clear is viscerally intense. 3 guys running across the deck and this freight-train of ice and water bearing down on them, the crowd on the cliff above (including the camera-man) screaming at them and then a chaotic maelstrom and breath held waiting to see them re-emerge... and only one bright orange suit clinging to the rigging! Then a dark head pops up and then another... between the grinding ship and the dark rocks!

*Really* like your idea of the sky-box placeable, OTR. I should have thought of that :-)

Oh, all the men were rescued, BTW. The helo pilot was re-assigned to tropical climes... She had broken regs to fly in icing conditions, but since she saved 5 lives, they couldn't very well discipline her, could they? ;-)

<...with an unsteady camera>

Modifié par Rolo Kipp, 23 mars 2012 - 01:59 .

[ShadowM]

No though are not my waves, but I did start my work with them. My waves are even better they actually move like wave and have the crest appear. Mine are placables with a number of varieties that will allow you to do shores and sea effect. That what I was talking about I have to take his emitters and add them to my placables. I have to dig them out and take some pics for you all when I can.

[OldTimeRadio]

Heh heh!  I'm glad you folks are liking this.  I thought I was going to be done with it but I found myself playing around with it a little more in order to test out some ideas regarding the illusion of forward movement through the water. 

The idea was this: Make simple animated waves using the Noise modifier.  Animate the texture using the UVW Xform modifier.  Animate both of those with just 5 keyframes each over the length of 150 frames.  Modify my UVW Mapping to break up the evenness of the grid so as textures move over the plane they distort, even without the waves.  And finally, drop a Smooth modifier on top of it all and tune autosmooth just until all my hard edges were gone.

Going into all I did would get probitively long but here's how my modifer stack looked when I was done.  The main bit is I selected a single vert on my ocean surface (I switched to a 30x30 plane) and used Soft Selection to push out influence till just before the plane intersected with my world sphere.  This way, waves closer to the boat are bigger.  Waves farther away, smaller.  Waves on the absolute horizon do not exist at all.




Definitely not perfect but I think it proves the concept .  I probably won't even bother with emitter splashes though I will work more on the waves- which you can see aren't very well done.

I'm going to keep on exploring this and seeing what can be done.  Unfortunately, because of the water plane the only way to get this to work and look nice is to redirect the ocean textures to a transparent texture, which is not going to cut it.  If I can use trickery and keep this a placeable, I think I migth do that instead of a tileset.

If I do try this as a tileset, can anyone hook me up with a list of ship models/tiles which should be included in order to make a sensible transition from a docked ship tile in Rural to the same ship out at sea?

Any more ideas about how this could be handled are welcome.  For instance, this skybox is just big enough for a 1x2 ship.  How physically big do you folks think something like this should be, etc.?

Modifié par OldTimeRadio, 23 mars 2012 - 10:13 .

[ShadowM]

You could add a rotating cresting emitter under the boat for the effect of it cutting through the waves. Very nice

Modifié par ShadowM, 23 mars 2012 - 11:13 .

[KlatchainCoffee]

ShadowM: I would very much appreciate if I was able to get hold of some decent shore waves for this campaign, as there are quite a number of beaches involved. I've been using 'Castle Rural' tileset a lot, but also used ixxon coast hak [attaches to Rural Grass] for variety - nice sandy beaches - minus the cliffs - but no waves to speak of [similar problem with the much better-looking W0rm tileset].

vivienne.l: Thank you! I'll be sure to look into it, though they may need some tinkering to be compatible with latest versions of NWN.

OTR: Despite any shortcomings, this looks good in the sense of giving the illusion of movement across the water.

This is a fairly long voyage into uncharted seas and so needs to feature a larger ship housing 50 (give or take) crew and passengers. I've looked quite thoroughly through the availiable models and Carrack, the model I like the most, which already exists in 'docked' and 'sailing' forms as a tile in the City Exterior tileset, is a little bit too small for the purpose at 1x4. I'm currently trying to look into whether it would be possible to 'enlarge' this model/tile to 1x5 or even 1x6.

I have never changed the size of a placable or a tile feature before, but I've heard of similar things being done.

There is also the nwn2 'ghost ship' model, which is 2x7, but I don't like its disproportionately short masts and lack of sails.

This is going to be a weekly campaign that may end up catering to between 5 and 25 people, some of them entirely new to NWN, hence the concern with space and appearences.

Thanks again - everyone has been exceptionally helpful here. :happy:

Modifié par KlatchainCoffee, 23 mars 2012 - 11:44 .

[The Amethyst Dragon]

Nice work so far, OldTimeRadio!

For the skybox, I think it needs to be much larger. Right now to me it really does look like the inside of a ball rocking back and forth., or else the effect of a ship sailing around a very, very small watery planetoid.

The watery texture moving under the water is a very cool effect.

I like the placeable idea. Having it centered on the ship means it would be rendered for anyone onboard.

Perhaps have water part of the placeable include waves that move across the whole thing, rather than in the same position against the ship?

Or have it a combo tileset/placeable system....the ship tiles as placeables, but without a water layer below so that the placeable water+sky doesn't clip with existing water. It could even be animated in a way that makes it look like the ship is moving up and down large swells (rather than cresting waves).

All in all, it looks like it would start to get complicated as you start to get more realistic, but could end up very convincing once fully functional.

[Rolo Kipp]

<getting his hands...>

You might also sculpt in the bow-wave and wake of the ship to enhance the forward movement.

I also think the skyball (new word!) should be much larger, as that would allow surface-piercing seamonsters/pirates ship creatures to approach... ;-)

You guys keep inspiring me to do stuff... Hey, if Sea, Air Land Travel wins the CCC you'll have a submission! <not gonna happen any time soon, boss>
Might. Still time. <dream on, old man>
Hrmph.

Anyway, I love waking up to all this goodness =)

<...wet>

[Karvon]

Looking better and better. Ideally this could be used with the variety of ships available.

Karvon

[Vivienne L]

Wow OldTimeRadio, that is even more awesome! And I second what everybody is saying that the sphere should be bigger!

[Vivienne L]

ShadowM wrote...

No though are not my waves, but I did start my work with them. My waves are even better they actually move like wave and have the crest appear. Mine are placables with a number of varieties that will allow you to do shores and sea effect. That what I was talking about I have to take his emitters and add them to my placables. I have to dig them out and take some pics for you all when I can.

I think we would all love to see your placeable waves!

[OldTimeRadio]

@ShadowM - Sounds cool but I'm not sure what that would look like.  You should post some screenies or video of those waves, they sound great!

@KlatchainCoffee - Though this is a WIP, It should work with a 1x2 or larger ship.  Just adjust the placeable accordingly.  There's a download button below to check it out.  Again, pretty tame based on what you want but it's sort of a start to give others ideas or build off of.

@The Amethyst Dragon - Thank you for the feedback, I agree.  I increased the size to 11000.  The fisheye effect you're talking about could just be my choice of skyboxes.  There's a download link lower down so you can get a feel for this in-game and/or build on it or change it.    For moving wave action, I added two animated Wave modifiers which mostly work- you can see them breaking up the grid lines below.  I'm having problems getting my Noise modifier to loop right so the ocean has waves but I think is still too "smooth".  The tileset/placeable combo is the most attractive thing so far.
 

@Rolo Kipp - Excellent idea- I tried sculpting the bow wave a bit but it gets complicated because I have modifiers which distort the mesh as they move over it and that throws my adjustments off.  I can throw another Edit Mesh modifier on top of all that (which is cool, didn't realize that would work) and then fine-tune the vertices but they still move around a bit.  On the larger skybox, you and Amethyst Dragon and all the others are right.  We'll see if it's enough to take away the extreme fisheye of the smaller version.  I picked 11000 because it seemed like a good distance for...cannon-y back and forths during the battles aquatic.  Exhibits A and B:


Now if we only had more information on making custom connonball projectiles...Oh, wait...

Anyway, here's my latest WIP.  It's definitely a WIP.  Play around with it, grab ideas from it, build off it, change it.  But it's an incomplete WIP so please don't build with it as-is.  IMO, KlatchainCoffee can do whatever he likes with it for his adventure but hopefully something better and more specific to his needs will come along, either from me or someone else. 



Notes:
* Compiled with this compiler.
* In this specific case, I'm exporting with sanity checking turned off.  The above compiler is very strict, IMO, and if it gets passed that I don't really care what NWMax thinks.  Again, that's in this specific case.
* Unpack to override directory
* Make an 11x12 area or so using the Tropical tileset, place your boat facing East, select Armoire placeable, place it down and adjust it so white triangle fits snugly into your bow.  Adjusting the placeable so that it's at 0.0 Z works really nicely in this current incarnation.  Make it non-static, non-usable.
* Included is the uncompiled ASCII version of this model for you to look at.  This model must be compiled before being used.

To custom content makers:
Exporting AniMesh: Like playing around with animesh but having problems with all your memory being sucked away when you export the model and possibly crashing Max?  You might want to try this burlier version of the NWMax export script which has only been modified to include more memory garbage collection during the export of animesh, keeping Max from running out of memory.  It will take a bit longer to export but you shouldn't have to worry about Max crashing when it does it.  Obviously, make a backup of the script this replaces.  I think it only works under Max but GMax folks are invited to try it out too:

Making more realistic animations on dummy node: Linear controllers on your animation dummy are..."ok"...but if you want more natural riding-the-waves movement, try using an Euler XYZ controller and then bake it down to Linear keys using NWMax's Anim Baker.  This basically allows you to simulate Bezier-style rotation movement (though there isn't a Bezier rotation controller).  However, when you're done your animations might not look right.  They might slow down at the wrong point or look odd.  This blog post will help you understand what's going on with your animations and how to fix it using the Track View - Curve Editor.  If you work with non-Linear controllers on your animation, it is vital to understanding how the Track View - Curve Editor allows you to easily fix them.

Bonus Ideas:
* Turning ships into phenotypes (dynamic ships!), having invisible walkmesh on a tileset ocean where you see the second ship in the screenshot above and then having the ship phenotype (or at least a creature with a ship appearance) move from behind the player's ship into the position. Once it's where the walkmesh elevated walkmesh is (all the sea would have to be walkable for this to work), spawn creatures on it.  Cannon fire from different cannons could be simulated using monster nodes and custom spell projectiles.
* As above, using VFX to "personalize" ships and/or change the state of destroyed cannons/crew by using Ippensheir-style VFX and tracking of it.
* Similar to the first idea of making a tileset with walkable sea, make one with walkable sea which allows walking up onto ship tiles and then use blocking placeables to prevent walking.  At the appropriate time, remove walking placeables (i.e. when a pirate dinghy/ship has sidled up to the player's ship) to allow creatures/players to embark/disembark.
* Islands, clouds or other phenomena to be given 180 frame animation, then spawned outside of the world spehere, turned on allowing them to "move passed" the player's ship, making the sea more interesting.

None of the above are particularly exotic operations- I think.  They all rely on doing simple things which people already do with tilesets, placeables or VFX, just applying them in non-standard ways.

Modifié par OldTimeRadio, 25 mars 2012 - 08:21 .

[Rolo Kipp]

<gasping...>

LOL! OMG! Your choice of enemies is... <boss? boss! quick! someone summon heimlich!>
*wordlessly offers some interesting research in Blender*

<...for breath>

[Killmonger]

First , Let me say all of you folk are just tremendous.

Some time ago I tried to make placeable waves. Actually I had had some success, but when I see the possibilities show above, it inspires me to a least comment.

I found that 2 animated sheets of polygons set at an acute angle to each other certainly conveys the "motion of the ocean" but required huge computing time. OTR's texturing effects and the inclusion of emitters

[Killmonger]

Ooops (wrong form)

The inclusion of emitters and the animation node would make for a fantastic stormy ocean effect. The skybox could also be animated like carriage overland illusion in that microset tileset of ???

Any way the best effect that I had managed was to use max to create a 4x8 (?) skinmesh which was rigged to some animated non renderable bones (either in 2d like a sine wave or 3d like a corkscrew) by choosing a modest amplitude the wave  (or wake) effect can work just fine. (Interesting animated motions alert) Except the wave would wash over the deck of the ships that were available then. Also the perimeter of the sheet must not be affected by the motions of the other verts

So I made quite a few different types. Longish rollers for the front and back of the ship and smaller amplitude under the ship and wild narrow ones to surround the sides of the ship. Within the game it was a quite passable effect using only the original ship in the tileset.

I offer this approach to you all because I still just dont have the time to contribute fully with this community. My work keeps me only as another lurker. I am just so impressed by the range of talent that this game inspires

Another approach for cresting waves was to create an animated series of a rolling, shaped cylinders...

Because this missive was broken in the middle I've lost my train of thought.

Long live Nwn !!
and
Happy Modding ...

[Vivienne L]

Really amazing stuff, OTR!!

[OldTimeRadio]

@Rolo Kipp - "Release....THE THATCHER!"  As for a better procedural ocean, I've tried at least one free plugin and it was both nice and not so great at the same time.  It's not in my demo but at one point I had a Noise modifier (actually two) on top of the Wave modifiers.  What it did right was those noise modifiers put visible wave crests between you and the enemy ship and the horizon which looked really nice and also combatted the fisheye view- and the actual waves (from the Wave modifier) gave a more uniform body to the whole thing.  It actually looked like it does at sea, where you dont' see the horizon so much as wave crests.  Problem was the crests affecteed the mesh under the boat and waves came into the boat.  I need to get a little tricker with Soft Selection and I think it could work better.  The procedural oceans are good, I just haven't found a good plugin for Max which allows me to set up the wave aspect of it.  I think they all expect I'm going to be doing a space warp or something- which is the kind of thing I'd do for animating it for a movie but not for a game.

@Killmonger- I think the carriage ride you're thinking of is by Lord of Worms.  He and Goudea did lots of good work with false perspective stuff.  Thanks for the tip, I think I see what youre saying and I'll play around with that.  I tried doing a skin mesh ocean like that but I didn't like the way the deformations worked.  Maybe I'll look at that again.  I agree abou the pain of waves coming through the deck or any other place they're not wanted.

@Amethyst Dragon - Oops, forgot: Aside from the things I mention to Rolo, above, my skybox also doesn't use the skyblurpoly "trick" so part of what might make it more realistic is using that.  Basically, it's a texture in a slightly smaller shell of my skybox which is pure alpha transparent and whcih keeps the fog from mucking with it.  I think such a thing would allow me not to have to push the fog out like I do, and that make things look a little more realistic.

@Vivienne.l - Thanks!  Nothing stoping ya from joining in!  At heart, it's just a dummy node with the simplest of animations, a flat plane and a sphere.  Could be lots of fun playing around with, even for a beginner.

Modifié par OldTimeRadio, 25 mars 2012 - 09:39 .