[Shader] Halo 2 Water

[Roostervier]

I am just going to release this to the general public so that anyone may have an example of a decent water shader. Feel free to edit it and use as you please, no credit is needed as I doubt anyone will be able to tell if you ripped me off of it anyway since it is water. I hope this helps anyone that is in need, and also, I need a permanent host. Is anyone interested?

Here is the file:
http://rapidshare.com/files/42413146/vindication_water.shader

Permanent Links:
http://www.halonews.org/stuff/vindication_water.shader
Provided Generously by Baturkin.

Here are the instructions to making it, as so generously provided to us by "bum has knife."


basic water pool shader:

-create a new shader and use the "water_pool" shader template.
-apply the liquid_thin_water material in the material_name field
-make sure the water flag is checked
-use the default dynamic_light_specular_type and set your lightmap_specular_brightness to 1
-attach your favorite animated water bitmap, experiment with the scale and translation values (they should be constant functions so you just tweak the numbers)
-bump_map_index, this should be an identity function, and you want it to cycle through all the bitmaps in your bump map plate, so if you have 15 total images it should be set to go from 0 to 14, a time period of .5 seconds works well.
-reflection map: get yourself a cubemap of your level; around where your water is located
-don't worry about the refraction map, you can leave it blank
-apply a fresnel bitmap, the alpha of this map will determine how transparent the water is
-i'm not very knowledgeable about the lightmap translucency section so you can experiment with this and post what results you're seeing, in general, you want to use a color white, with a black alpha bitmap, set the color to the color you want the ground beneath the water to kinda look like and set the translucent_alpha to 0

Credits:
bum has knife - the instructions
kornman00 - the sp/mp bitmap packs

My notes:

Do mostly what bum says, including the light map translucency map. Also, make sure you uncheck the UNUSED flag in kornmans bitmaps. When tiling, keep in mind, 0.2 is quite large actually. If you want it for a small little pool, I'd make it 0.1 or lower. I had a hard time figuring out scale when I kept lowering it. It didn't lower until I started going down from 1 to 0. Make sure, in the bump map index slot, that you make it identity. Leaving it as constant will result in your bitmap not animating. Yet another problem I had answered by bum. Anyway, I hope this helps the community, have fun with it.

Pic(s):
Original

http://i62.photobucket.com/albums/h86/flyinrooster/water2.jpg

Lightened Version (lightened compliments of baturkin)

http://img247.imageshack.us/img247/4031/water2qd4lq8.jpg

An underwater shot (Showing off the Real Time Refractions)

http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/5635/underwaterir6.jpg

[Kornman00]

Just PM the next time you (or someone else) has something serious to be released, and I'll priority the approval.

[Roostervier]

Ok, thanks. Baturkin provided one permanent link, I will edit my post.

[Ki11a_FTW]

yes,finally

[CrippieBoy]

Thank you sir

[AAA]

umm...in the lightened version of the water. you increased gamma or something. compare the Vista Start Menu Bar. =\ This for real? cause I feel as though I'm not buying.

[Hurrvish]

IF you read, flyinrooster did say that baturkin brightened it, and if you compare both pictures, the time and the items on the taskbar are the same.

[Roostervier]

Yes, kornman00 thought the picture was too dark so baturkin simply lightened my picture up. It's not a lighter version of the water.

[Kornman00]

First picture is lost now :-3.

[Roostervier]

Boo! Hold on, I will reupload it.

[edit] Fixed. Also, I think, once lightning can host it, I will make it a rar with all the .bitmaps I used and the shader. I may upload it to halomaps too.

[StankBacon]

nice :D

[Con]

Thanks!

[Resinball]

I have a water Plane that appears in game, but I'm not sure what Shader Symbols to throw in with the material name to get the water to show on both sides, with water splashes (only on top) and no collision.

I have tried %, $, ? and ! (separately) with varying results but not what I need.


Also, I really appreciate the supportive and intelligent community you have going on here, so I finally registered and will be releasing my betas (alphas?) soon enough.

[Roostervier]

First post has been updated with and in game screen-shot showing off the Real Time Refractions ^^. The only bad thing is that it is hard to tell you are under water unless you see it in real time.

[Dr Dmoney]

First post has been updated with and in game screen-shot showing off the Real Time Refractions ^^. The only bad thing is that it is hard to tell you are under water unless you see it in real time.


Yeah, Is there a way to make everything look a little darker when you are underwater. It would be very cool because I want to make a part of a map an underwater map; it would be even more spectacular if you made the water have little bubbles come up when your underwater. These are just ideas that could make a map even cooler, and less of a way to camp underwater inside maps that have underwater parts to them.

And you did a great job... Keep up the fantastic work!!!

[Roostervier]

Yes, just add fog to the water. It is something I haven't really messed with yet, but will in the future.

[Roostervier]

Forgive the double post, but it has come to my attention of something a bit confusing. There are two sections that say water.bitmap. Both the bump map section and reflection map section. I did not use the same bitmap in both. I used a cubemap named the same thing. Just for those who may have been confused.

[Ki11a_FTW]

-me-

[Resinball]

I am also curious about the Lightmap_Translucency_Map:

lightmap_translucency.bitmap

because I seem to be missing it and it is not included in either of the collections that kornman00 released, am I supposed to use another bitmap?

[Roostervier]

Just make a white bitmap with a black alpha. All i did was open photoshop, made a new image 128^, went to channels, hit make new, saved, compiled with explicit alpha, and I was finished.

[Resinball]

Thankx rooster, the only thing I didn't follow was how to compile with explicit alpha.

* I found the the explicit alpha format setting in guerilla.

[Floppy]

I have some problems with the shader.It don't look like water more like a mirror and if i try to packaging the map the program crash if it is at the shader:(. I didn't change any values of the shader.

Bitmaps i used:

bump_map: scenarios\bitmaps\water\water
reflection_map: scenarios\bitmaps\reflection_maps\earthcity_sky (temporary)
fresnel_map: scenarios\bitmaps\water\fresnel
lightmap_translucency: I used http://image-upload.biz/files/3f27da6b43f78a1b0db1a203b.tif

Sorry, my english is bad:D

crashing program:
http://img522.imageshack.us/img522/3686/crashkz4.th.jpg (http://img522.imageshack.us/my.php?image=crashkz4.jpg)

Water/Mirror:
http://img230.imageshack.us/img230/5731/waterec6.th.jpg (http://img230.imageshack.us/my.php?image=waterec6.jpg)

[Roostervier]

Make sure the UNUSED flag in the bitmap file is unchecked.

[Floppy]

Damn. I love you:jibbly:

[Kornman00]

Damn. I love you:jibbly:
:lmao:

That UNUSED flag annoys me, I just HAD to learn about it AFTER I posted the bitmaps -_-.

[fletcher77]

where can I get a fresnel_map or how do they look so I can create it.

[Kornman00]

Look for my thread where I released all the bitmaps for the game

[fletcher77]

I found the thread thanks

[fletcher77]

I just can't get it to be transparent I made my own Lightmap_translucency and used the fresnel_map

[Roostervier]

Is the UNUSED flag checked in any of your bitmaps? Did you follow bums instructions to the letter? We need details.

[gamerzworld]

Just in case you need it...
http://gzwn.net/halo2/modding/vindication_water.shader

Anyway, nice job!

[Floppy]

I have the same Problem.I played around with the fesnel but I don't get it transparent.

[fletcher77]

Is the UNUSED flag checked in any of your bitmaps? Did you follow bums instructions to the letter? We need details.
http://img32.picoodle.com/img/img32/9/7/24/t_shaderm_08f7b97.jpg (http://www.picoodle.com/view.php?img=/9/7/24/f_shaderm_08f7b97.jpg&srv=img32)
I made my own Lightmap_translucency like you said how and used the fresnel_map that Kornman00 put out. and unchecked the bitmaps and made my own cubemap.
this part here I don't get (-bump_map_index, this should be an identity function, and you want it to cycle through all the bitmaps in your bump map plate, so if you have 15 total images it should be set to go from 0 to 14, a time period of .5 seconds works well.) I don't get the 15 total image thing I only loaded 1 bump map. How dose this work?

[Roostervier]

It should be from 0 to 16.

[Ki11a_FTW]

I fixed it easlily just use the following bitmap as a frensel

Scenarios\bitmaps\multi\headlong\bitmaps\ocean_pla ne.bitmap

[Floppy]

Damn. I don't get the shader transaprent. The alpha of the fresnel bitmap should say how transparemt the shader is. I made some shaders to test it. The first one has a fresnel with a white alpha, the second one has a black alpha and the third one is the standart fresnel. Why are my shaders not transaparent?:( No UNUSED flag is checked.....

http://img78.imageshack.us/img78/2342/suckskopiekopieqb0.th.jpg (http://img78.imageshack.us/my.php?image=suckskopiekopieqb0.jpg)

[SuperSunny]

Damn. I don't get the shader transaprent. The alpha of the fresnel bitmap should say how transparemt the shader is. I made some shaders to test it. The first one has a fresnel with a white alpha, the second one has a black alpha and the third one is the standart fresnel. Why are my shaders not transaparent?:( No UNUSED flag is checked.....

http://img78.imageshack.us/img78/2342/suckskopiekopieqb0.th.jpg (http://img78.imageshack.us/my.php?image=suckskopiekopieqb0.jpg)

That...is odd. Maybe there is something else you need to check?

[Roostervier]

I am back! Anyway, I used the standard fresnel map (IIRC). Make sure your lightmap_translucency map is white with black alpha.

[Floppy]

That's weird:iiam:. It makes no differents if I use a white lightmap_translucency with black alpha, a black lightmap_translucency with white alpha or no lightmap_translucency. It would be great if someone would check this lightmap_translucency (http://image-upload.biz/files/382ac135629826f5dca339303.tif) if it is correct.:)

[l SINERGY l]

Yea i'm having this same problem with my water as well. It just comes out looking like a mirror.

[jngrow]

Damn. I don't get the shader transaprent. The alpha of the fresnel bitmap should say how transparemt the shader is. I made some shaders to test it. The first one has a fresnel with a white alpha, the second one has a black alpha and the third one is the standart fresnel. Why are my shaders not transaparent?:( No UNUSED flag is checked.....

http://img78.imageshack.us/img78/2342/suckskopiekopieqb0.th.jpg (http://img78.imageshack.us/my.php?image=suckskopiekopieqb0.jpg)

Yep. I always get 3. I've been screwin around with it forever. And When I make a plane, I can only walk on top of the water. How would I be able to go "in" it?

[l SINERGY l]

Add a ! to the end of your material name in 3ds max, so it would be something like: mylev water!

(et_cg showed me that :))

[jngrow]

Add a ! to the end of your material name in 3ds max, so it would be something like: mylev water!

(et_cg showed me that :))

huh, everywhere else instructed me to use a %. Thanks for the tip!

Sigh, none of this is working. I suck, have been at it for hours. Can someone PLEASE post a step-by-step tutorial on how to use water? Like is the plane called +media, or the sub-mat, where should I put shader symbols, etc.

[l SINERGY l]

Yea ! just makes it so there's no collision which is good for things like waterfalls but not good for pools of water.

*edit* NVM im an idiot. Use % not !.

[Roostervier]

I use ! and ?

! - collisionless, render only

? - double sided transparent

[l SINERGY l]

Hmm I just used %! for a waterfall and it worked fine.

[johnnyblaz20]

I'm having trouble making my water splash when a bullet or anything comes in contact with it. any tips??
heres my water so far
DOES IT LOOK OKAY?
http://img354.imageshack.us/img354/1748/waternm0.png

[Vicky]

Your water looks very similar to mine, i don't know how to make it splash like the water on zanzibar for example, maybe it's just an effect. On zanzibar the water surface and the bottom react as water when shot at.

Anywho, do you have fog on your map by any change? I got fog on mine but there is no fog over the water. So the land is covered in fog at some distance but the water is still clear at that distance. Any thoughts?

[johnnyblaz20]

I have a fog plane placed 5 max units below my water, and the fog does cover another area on my map but it works out awsome for me. It perfectly covers the ground in my underground base.
For some reason now this water splashes when i shoot it but still does not splash when i walk through it or drive through it but oh well. Maybe its an effect like you said but I can not figure it out as of now.

[Vicky]

Actually i meant sky/air fog not for underwater... that looks fine now. You can see it in my avatar, hills on the right are foggy but at that distance the water is still clear, no fog whatsoever.

[johnnyblaz20]

Thats a real thin looking fog.

[Vicky]

It's a very small picture...

I'll post a screenshot where it's better visible.

[Vicky]

http://www.h2vista.net/forums/%5BIMG%5Dhttp://i9.tinypic.com/4q54a3l.jpg%5B/IMG%5Dhttp://i9.tinypic.com/4q54a3l.jpg

Ok, so the fog turns opaque at the green line but there's no fog over the water.. any way to do that?

[johnnyblaz20]

Thats not right. a fog plane should cover everything below it in all directions unless you wanna get more complex. I'll mess around but i cant help you now. Maybe it has something to do with the shaders, like the water shader beating the fog shader with a stick. lol,

[Vicky]

I mean the skyfog, not the underwater stuff... i've got that covered.

[johnnyblaz20]

yeah. Its funny though how your fog just stays away from your water.