Graphics Programs Reference
In-Depth Information
is mostly in the frothy bumpiness and in the lacy-shaped outline cut out
by the procedural textures:
•
The third stage
: This group of nodes establishes the location of the
foam, which in the real world is mainly created in the higher parts of the
waves, behaving as a gray-scale "stencil" map. This is a bit more com-
plex, but basically a gradient texture is mapped on the (vertexes)
Posi-
tion
and multiplied for the
Normal
coordinates of the ocean mesh that,
being created by the
Ocean
modifier, is constantly changing. So, only
as the waves rise up they show foam at the top. The effect has been
lessened and made a bit random, to show some foam also scattered
around the rest of the surface. This works not only for stills but also in an-
imation. In the following image, you can see the resulting black and white
"mask" used as stencil for the foam location:
See also
The Blender
Ocean
modifier is able to create its own foam effect, generated as ver-
tex colors and baked to a series of images (frames) saved in a directory. These im-
ages are then automatically mapped on the surface and can be used also as stencil
masks instead of the
Foam_location
group node. To know more about the
Ocean
modifier, you can have a look at the Wiki documentation at
http://wiki.blender.org/in-
