How would I go about replicating this effect of the light on the water in Blender? I'm relatively noobish in Blender, but I'm trying to make a skybox for a game with a city across a bay. It would be a still image, but I don't know if it would be done by modelling the surface of the water, or by applying a material to a flat plane, if that's even possible.
>>510903
Also it might be worth pointing out that I've only used texture mapping before, so I have zero experience with materials.
>>510903
I've found that if you create the surface of the water, as you would normally, and apply a decent water shader or even just glossy, it looks fine.
Just set up a point light, or a spot at the correct angle, and the water will do the rest.
Even better if you get a circle with the moon textured on as an emission.
>>510906
You can create the surface by using the displacement modifier with a cloud texture at a low setting.
Or by going into edit mode, subdivide to a number and using the fractal option to displace vertices. Then smoothing it with a subdivision surface modifier.
Both methods produce nearly the exact same result. Pic related, Left is fractal method, right is texture displacement.
In terms of setting up materials for a game engine, I'm not totally sure. I don't use blender's game engine so I don't know what types of materials it's capable of. You should be able to get a decent glossy material out of it though.
Most of the reflections come from the angle the viewer is at, and how low the moon is to the water. Play around with placement to find what works.
>>510908
I'll try that.
As for materials, I won't need to export anything. What I'll end up exporting is six images that will be mapped to a cube. I'm just trying to get the rendered image to look good.
>>510908
If you're going with geometry instead of a normal map anyway, use the ocean modifier, it looks way better than that.
I figure I may as well just keep this thread for any new questions I have for this project. I'm making a sky by centring a large sphere around the camera with a starry image mapped to it. Is there any way I can stop it from blocking the light from the sun lamp, and also how do I get it to show up without having to be lit?
Ocean modifier is pretty rad. Can it do collisions?
>>511107
Just put your sun lamp inside the sphere. As i understand, sun lamp is a constant light source. Distance from an object has no bearing on the falloff of the light.
As for the sphere itself, set the material to be an emission material, or shadeless. I don't know what game engine uses.
