3D Reflection 42 - Water Shader and Simple Grass Wind

Moving water was an element of visual interest I wanted to add. It would make my level more realistic and alive. I started by taking a royalty free water texture and turning it into a normal map on photoshop. I used the same water image as my base colour. I tiled both four times to cover a larger area.

I then followed a tutorial on water animation to create a material. I used the panner node to make two normal maps move in opposite directions against eachother, and adjusted the translucency, fresnel and other effects to create convincing water.

I also created a plane for the water against the interior of the pond and exported this into UE4.

Positioning the plane

Water effect on the plane

I adjusted the brightness by experimenting with emissive colours, but I decided that it looked more realistic with increased transparency and fresnel and reflectivity.

I felt that the animation was too static still, and so I worked on adding a warp effect to the plane material alongside the panning normals. This would create a wave effect. I used simple grass wind and edited it to create even large waves rather than a slight jiggle that foliage would use. The result was more realistic water movement and a more lively feel.

I applied simple grass wind to my foliage as well. I went into the node and adjusted the constant for wind speed and weight, as I wanted to create a light breeze. I adjusted the minimum and maximum wind speed to create more uneven bursts of breeze.

I also applied this to my papyrus grass material and my lotus material to achieve the same effect.

I also tried this with the cloth, but it looked unatural and didn't match the physics I would need for cloth. Therefore I decided to scrap the animation until I create a physics asset for the cloth.