Waterfalls

ok, this is one i've been working on recently. it's somewhat like the landscapes filter, but is a way to make a variety of waterfalls.

it's VERY rough yet but i'm posting because i have questions. i'm working with a number of set alpha results and profile gradient maskings. i need a good way to seamlessly blend one alpha channel result with another. the blend modes dont seem to do it quite like i want, or at least not all the ways i want, which is why i'm also having to use the profile gradient masking. but it's all quite clumsy at this point.

this one is a real blending problem. there are about 5 or 6 different alphas i'm trying to blend in a proper manner here and it's a bit of a trick and i'm having to delete certain things i want in order to get anything approximating what i really want. i'll post some more specific questions when i start working on it again.

Compose your own waterfall.....cool concept!!!

another problem was where i had 3 alphs coming into contact with each other. i could remove the effects of one overlaying the other, but not the third. that was a tickler and promted me with getting rid of some of the alphas for profile gradients.

another trick was with the sky. originally, i had a fixed waterfall size square in the middle of the image. that was it, no other waterfall on the edges of the image. this presented the problem of having the sky having a curved edge along its bottom edge but then making it completely straight where it ran along the top of the waterfall. in the image posted above you can see that i kind of cheated with the sky/waterfall intersection. it shld be a completely straight line across there but a little visual trickery masks it a bit.

i've also yet to work out a really good way to get the rocks to be where i want the rocks to be. right now, the waterfall just seems to come right out of the rocks and that's just not good. so, that's going to need some work too.

what i may have to do for the rocks is split them up into four on-the-sides type effects with maybe a fifth in the middle for better control of where the rocks are. i've been avoiding doing that but may have to. i've currently got an offset plugged into the rocks and part of it alpha'd out. thus, i can move the rocks around up and down and side to side and have the water show up through the alpha, but that's kind of limited and crude and doesnt always make visual sense in the final effect.

thanks, jean.

i am playing with it some more. have tried a couple other ways of doing things, some with promise. this is one that i just sort of work on in my spare time. might even be fun to make it a collective effort and see what others come up with. not too worried about the rock color at the moment, but that might be an option and color might help sort the rock control situation out too. i might also have to turn anti-aliasing off on this one. the AA keeps smoothing out my mist/splatter.

for now, i've gone back to the rocks to try some separation control. there's no way i'm going to be able to route the water around the rocks like it shld in real life, so i've got to do some tricks with that. this whole filter is a fun little conundrum.

some more fine tuning and added in jean's suggestion of green.

glass? that seems a bit odd. got a particular one in mind?

well, i did a little image search on google today. boy, is there ever a TON of stuff i could do to make this a better filter. so, i'm still working on it. in fact, this may have to be a series.

i'm also having to re-write a few things as i want to do more. the last re-write put in certain limits that i no longer like and i find my routines are now looking somewhat like the earlier ones that werent so limited. lol.

well, you're welcome, jean. it's a bit of a premature thank you at this point, but i'll take it as an encouragement thank you and, your idea with adding the greens was a good one. i'll be adding more colors now as well. i've got one image from google that i really like and i'm going to pattern the falls somewhat after that. it's got some nice color in it.

i'm also getting more adept at alpha blending. i'd overlooked some very simple solutions in the earlier work. that's corrected now.

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Persidio wrote: I've finally decided to start learning 3d

Its a fun place to be....


Kraellin this looks like its coming along... Eventually could almost blend this
with the landscape filter...

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Kraellin wrote: glass? that seems a bit odd. got a particular one in mind?

Yup submitting it tonight or tomorrow..... it's glassy ripple effect.....might be useful for your water.....but the way you have it already looks good

currently, i can change the opacity of the falls, clarity of the pool, the rock configuration, offset the rocks, widen or narrow the falls, move the falls side to side, change the falls color and adjust the roughness and contrast of pool and falls.

Hi CFandM~

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Its a fun place to be....

Now all I need is extra time in a day~ 24 hours is nice but 30 hours a day would help.

LOL

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steve's going to be upset with me though. i'm working on this and not the monster

Well you needed a break from the monster~

Signature Artist,,, yes... slang terms for signatures,,, sig, siggy, sigs... so Sig Artist, Siggy Artist...

Oh I lOVE it!!!!!!!!!

WOW that is amazing!

I had a filter going with the water fall type water you have and lost it... just crazy about what you did here~. Perfect~

.....or maybe something like this.....

Craig, all the versions seem like they would be quite usable.....from poster to realistic.....

Very clever work!!! The water of the falls is getting excellent!!!

thanks, steve, CF

yes, it is getting closer. the good news is there's more control. the bad news is there's more controls. i'm up to 26 controls now and could easily add more. but, i think i'm going to stop there... i think i consider what i've got fairly vital to a filter like this. there's so many variables in this thing that you need the controls. i have labeled them all to be pretty clear to the user.

i've got this thing in pretty good shape now. there's only a couple of oddities i need to smooth out, mostly just re-mapping settings, i think. so, shld be good to go soon.

i also added a selector with 5 different backgrounds for variety. and i took steve's suggestion to use vlad's 'crysta' filter, only i removed the high pass for faster speed. so, it's now one of the new backgrounds. the others are mine. the current default pic uses vlad's. i'll post that one first.

there's also one other thing i may change. the current blending always puts the waterfalls dropping into the pool right at the land's edge. i shld be able to vary that so that it would be movable, dropping into the water or even onto the land a bit. it's not bad like it is, but i just noticed it today as i was working on it. or, i could just wait and do an update later on.

one of the other nice things about this is, if you dont like my backgrounds, you can just plug your own in and use those. it's pretty straight forward in the editor where you would do this.

basically, this is a blend of about 5 different elements, background, falls, pool, mist and beach. each element has its own set of controls to provide variation and there is only one control that isnt global to all of the backgrounds and elements.

one bad thing is, because of the way i did each element, the 'size, pixel' setting will break just about everthing. so, you pretty much have to leave it at its max setting. and i dont even know about seamless tiling. lol, been too busy with the rest of it to even look at the seamless setting.

anyways, here's the new default:

and another...

several more yet

couple more yet...

ok, i've submitted the filter. i made a few more changes and added 3 more controls, bringing the total to 29. that probably seems a lot compared to most filters, but the controls mostly make sense and shldnt be that hard.

i've added the ability to change the mist width and position, to allow the falls to fall into the water or on the edge, and a couple other little tweaks and corrections.

and since this is still the weekend, i'm posting the filter here in the forums also. enjoy and if you have any further suggestions, after using, let me know.

Waterfalls 4a.ffxml

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Kraellin wrote: lol. well, i thought someone would comment. must be i showed you too much, too early

LOL.... got burried and didn't know that you had new posts .....I'm usually on it like a fly on a cow patti LOL.....

Looks great!!! Quite a clever concept.....going to check it out....

PS..... I was just thinking that this concept could be simplified (posterized) to create different scenes for children's books as well.....big $$$ in that....

HURRAY!!!! Aside from the issues above and also the filter you posted in the fourm has some components kinda hanging out not doing anything...I seen them cause I had to move everything just for a anaglyph experiment...Way to slow with all that 3d connected...

But other than that this filter is great

I love the look of the water splashing up as the falls hit it...Also the perception of depth with the blurring of the background...
Again