[TUTORIAL] Placing Water in Your H2V Map

[CodeBrain]

Heres something nice for you people that need water in your map: A nice fresh video tutorial from my Modding Oven. :D

Required Programs:

1. Adobe Photoshop
2. 3DS Max 6-8 (or 9, but I use 8)
3. H2EK (Halo 2 Map Editor)
4. KornMans Bitmaps.

And the best part....NO UNWANTED NOISE! :D

Enjoy.

When I say unwanted noise, I ment like no moms, barking. The wind is from my fan in the room I was in. It was hot in there.....so I turned it up. Please do not get annoyed by this small little detail....

http://files.filefront.com/H2V+Waterrar/;8564217;;/fileinfo.html

[Patrickssj6]

1. It's Guerilla not Gorilla...:haw:

2.There is much noise...bad quality...

3.The tut stops suddenly in the middle of Guerilla...:(

[CodeBrain]

Um....wtf? It sounded A LOT better than that when it was in the Movie Editor...:(

Well, I guess thats what happens when you try to speed through production times.

Sorry. ;(

And yes, I said Guerilla wrong....I was actually going to have the whole tutorial with no sound, and have Microsoft Sam do the talking. Figured it took too long, and it doesnt fit.

Ill reput the tutorial in, I had no idea wtf happened. Sorry!

[QTip05]

hurry up and upload bro

[CodeBrain]

Fixed the tutorial! Download is open! :D

[Skyline]

Do you have any pictures of the outcome?

[CodeBrain]

Here you go:

http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b152/ShadowFireMario/ocean.jpg

[Tweek]

yes, that's a very clear and obvious image. :/

[CodeBrain]

>.>....He asked for a photo of the water....so I gave him it.

[Skyline]

Yes that isn't very appealing water.

[CodeBrain]

Yeah I know, my computer runs H2V ok, not with all the *awesomeness* put into it. The water's dullness is because of my graphics card. It might turn out better for yours.

[Vicky]

For some simple water it's ok i guess, although i would brush up a little on your 3ds skills.

[johnnyblaz20]

Besides placing the planes and attaching the shader what does 3ds have to do with what the water looks like? i'm asking because i really want to know.
btw.. how does my water look?
http://img354.imageshack.us/img354/1748/waternm0.png

[Patrickssj6]

Besides placing the planes and attaching the shader what does 3ds have to do with what the water looks like? i'm asking because i really want to know.
btw.. how does my water look?
<image>


Only the UVW tiling I think. Looks nice by the way ^^

[johnnyblaz20]

well i dont know how i could uvw a shader tag with no image on 3ds.
the only thing that i know of besides the shader that you need to mess with is the map map bsp file in guerilla. messing with the bsp is one thing code brain forgot to put in his tut....... oh and messing with bitmap files in the shader do alot too.. but i'm learning. i want to know how to make splashes in the water when its shot or a vehicle goes through it.. and maybe splashes on the shoreline...
is it possible and if so in what direction should i start testing??

do i need to start with a certain shader template or something??

[Vicky]

Water is still pretty fishy, at first i had the splashes and stuff but it wouldn't animate, after some fooling around with the shader it animated but the splashes etc. were gone. And for splashes it needs to be colidable but then when you try to walk through the water you look like that dude that lived a very long time ago...

[johnnyblaz20]

SO I set it with the collidable symbol in max? i did that already..

[Vicky]

There's another topic about making water, maybe you'll find more there. I don't know if anyone has perfect water, if so maybe that person can post all titbits on how to create it.

[Patrickssj6]

well i dont know how i could uvw a shader tag with no image on 3ds.
the only thing that i know of besides the shader that you need to mess with is the map map bsp file in guerilla. messing with the bsp is one thing code brain forgot to put in his tut....... oh and messing with bitmap files in the shader do alot too.. but i'm learning. i want to know how to make splashes in the water when its shot or a vehicle goes through it.. and maybe splashes on the shoreline...
is it possible and if so in what direction should i start testing??

do i need to start with a certain shader template or something??
I guess you can use a temporary check pattern material at first (3ds max build in).

[johnnyblaz20]

any tips on making water splash?

[Con]

In your shader, set the material type to water.

[Vicky]

I've sort of had it with the waterstuff, i had a good water shader... looked like water and animated, wanted to use it for another map so i just and only copied it to another folder, bitmaps etc were where they should be... was all good. Guess what, it didn't look like water on the new map and even worse, this i really don't understand, the original didn't work anymore either... didn't edit it, did nothing to it... got all weird colors etc... it did still animate but it was screwed up... sigh...

[johnnyblaz20]

the weird colors i'm sure had something to do with the bitmaps. i had the same problem.. maybe you gotta find them again in the shader just to be sure.

[Vicky]

That wouldn't explain why the one i copied suddenly changed.

[johnnyblaz20]

did you try using the copied shader in place of your original on a map you already have it in use? and in the shader are any of the bitmap names red?
it sounds funny to me.
why did you copy it? you can use the same shader on many maps?

[Vicky]

Yeah u can use the same water shader on every map, that would result in having the same reflection on every map...that's not my idea of mapping. None of the bitmaps are in red (i would have spotted that :)). And as i said earlier it did work on 1 map, copied it to another for another map and the original didn't work as before, it's nuts.

[johnnyblaz20]

sorry for stating the obvious, i'm sure you also have it in a place the shader_collections recognizes. other than i'm stumped. i'd just make a new shader if i were you..

[Vicky]

Naming it different after copying seems to help, this time i copied and renamed the shader file and it worked at once like a charm. Maybe not use 'water.shader' as filename for every watershader.

[Vicky]

So erm, now i got a pretty nice water plane, how do you create fog underneath? Tried some things but no fog yet.

[CodeBrain]

you would place a +media plane under the water plane.

[Vicky]

Just that? Don't i need a planar_fog shader or something?

[CodeBrain]

Yea, i guess you do, I havent messed with fogs yet :/

[Vicky]

Well that aint working, if u look at zanzibar there's an underwater shader... i'm pretty sure you'd need something similar except when i use that one i just get a see through foggy plane, there's no fog underneath or above.

[CodeBrain]

To tell you the truth, I think you might of noticed this, but I havent, but I think if you use a box or sphere than a plane, would you get a box/sphere of water? Anyone willing to try gets cookies! :D

[Vicky]

As expected that doesn't work, i'd love some cookies though :)

Anyone that has actually done this reply perhaps? Quoting the h2v bible is not that usefull (thanks anyway).

[johnnyblaz20]

Ya, you just place a plane about 5 max units below your water plane, give it a material number "look for materials in your modifier list if you didnt know". name it +media!? in the materials and directly. attach it to your map, no need for bitmaps just make sure you put the +media!? in your materials. and after compiling you have to go into your map scenario with guerilla and look for planer fog pallette. click add, and name it fog01 or something. click on the button by the shader area and look for the shader in tags/scenarios/skies/zanzibar/ and its called zanzibar fog something, i think its the one you were talking about. after that you have fog....
and problems post back and i'll help.

[Vicky]

Ok tried that but no fog and the water is garbled and doesn't animate. Suggestions?

[johnnyblaz20]

download armoman"s "more complex" map making tut if you cant figure it out after this, he explains it quite well in that.
1 did you apply the right shader in the map's scenario file?
2 remember you have to delete your whole map scenario, scenario bsp, scenario lightmap, and the rest of them out of your scenario/multi/map file before re-compiling. did you try that?
3 umm maybe add a bitmap to the plane, any foggy looking one out of your f_im file but still set it as +media!? . thats all i did.

its trial and error, but once you get it once its cake. it was the same way with water for me.

oh 1 more thing. remember to set the plane's actual name to +media!? and than actually attach it to your map. remember also to name it the same thing in your materials.

[Vicky]

1. yes
2. not yet
3. i'll try

I'll try the name as well, just called it fogplane.

Off topic, i thought instanced geometry wouldn't take up more memory during compiling as well but it appears it does or?

[Vicky]

Still no luck, tried what u mentioned... didn't finish watching that tut yet... wow it's long... anyway, the water is less important if i can't get all the geometry on the map, looks like i gotta start making scenery...

(and i thought i'd never be exporting and compiling jms files again :eyesroll:)

[johnnyblaz20]

You have to make sure your fog plane is named +meida?! in all areas in max. that is the most important thing. after that it is cake. p.s. if you wanna learn just about fog in that tut just skip to the end untel he has a plane in the pit. when you see it you'll probably be like ohhhhh, he was right. lol jk

[Vicky]

I'll check tommorow, i'll let u know.

[johnnyblaz20]

i just put a fog plane on the map i'm working on. lol

[Vicky]

Ok it works :D I think the fogplane was a little too close to the water.

Bit of an early cheer, i either get the fog good or the water but not both...with fog the water still gets messed up :(

Would these have something to do with it? Can't remember seeing them at first:

(615): error X5608: Compiled shader code uses too many arithmetic instruction slots (69). Max. allowed by the target (ps_2_0) is 64.

### DX9 tag 'shaders\shader_passes\water\water_pool' has one or more colorsign bits set

[johnnyblaz20]

are you using a pool shader or ocean shader for your water?

[Vicky]

Pool.

[johnnyblaz20]

either you have your shader material in 2 places the submaterials in max.
you have goofy bitmaps in your shader.
or you have 2 shaders with the same name.
it might to be with your bump bitmap in your shader. do you have it to 0-16?
well it could be any of the above. or not. just trying to help.
did you mess with your structure. bsp?

[Vicky]

No i don't have the same shaders in max, i use the single player bitmaps that korn provided, water, fresnel and the zanzibar cubemap. When i mess with the water in the structure bsp it looks pretty cool in sapien, when submerged and looking up it blurrs objects outside the water but when i build my map (after doing some stuff with the water in the bsp) it won't show up in h2v.

[johnnyblaz20]

I'm pretty sure its supposed to blur images outside the water when your inside it. but hu. i never have that problem. i always mess with the bsp too. have you ever tried to make water with an ocean template? i cant get a clean picture, havnt messed around with it too much. but the cool thing about that is you can raise the level of the water in the bsp. and it goes on and on all over you map at the same level.
anyways i was asking if you have your "water" shader assigned to 2 materials in max..
or i remember you said you copied your water shader. if you have 2 copies of it.

[Vicky]

Copied it from a previous map to my current map. I've tried 2 or 3 ocean shaders but then i don't get any water at all, just fog... maybe combine ocean shader and messing in the bsp?

[johnnyblaz20]

well with an ocean shader you HAVE to mess with the bsp. you have to set the height you want your water in saipen units. and you have to set the FOV at 360.

[Vicky]

Alrighty, thx i'll try that.

[Vicky]

Ok, finally got water and fog :) thx for the help.

[johnnyblaz20]

I try to be helpful at times. When you package and try to play on it does your water splash when you go through it? or shoot it? thats what i want and i cant get it to work.
I'm wondering if it would splash if i didnt mess with the bsp. but it makes the water look so damn beautiful. oh well i'll try some things. maybe a static shader template with an effect added. duno, i'll try.

[Vicky]

Same here, no splashes on that water.

[johnnyblaz20]

do you think you have to add an effect to the water shader or something? or should it be integrated with the template?

[Vicky]

Good question, i've looked at some templates but i'm not sure what does what.

[StankBacon]

can somone upload everything you need to get some water...

bitmaps, shaders, whatever.

please :D

ive been trying for hours to no avail.

no matter what i do, it just wont work.

[Vicky]

There are many topics on water, 'Ask the bum [shader development thread]' for example. You should be able to find the info you need in those threads.

[StankBacon]

ive looked in every thread on water, multiple times.

and i still cant get it >.<

[Vicky]

Try the vindication shader and the water/fresnel bitmaps from the SP bitmappack kornman provided, that got me started.

[johnnyblaz20]

Good luck stanky, I pm'd you some pointers.