Tutorial: Surface Water

[Andantonius]

Well, here we go with a tutorial for making simple and extremely realistic surface water. You can either use this as a top down view or transform it to make an ocean or underwater surface.

Step 1. Hit D on your keyboard to reset your swatched to black and white, then do a Filter -> Render -> Clouds





Step 2. Do a Filter -> Sketch -> Bas Relief and set the [i]Detail[/b] to 15 and the smoothness to 1.





Voiala! Quick and great water! Now just do Ctrl + U for the Hue/Saturation options and set it to taste (With the color box checked)





Now duplicate your layer, with Ctrl + J or Layer -> Duplicate Layer, select your duplicate layer, Do a Filter -> Blur -> Gaussian Blur of about 2-3 pixels (Depending on image size) and set the blending mode to lighten. (You can merge your two layers together if you're planning on moving it)





And there we go! Quick and realistic water!

But don't stop there, continue on and personalize your water to make it unique and special.



This tutorial was written by Andantonius.
Feel free to E-mail him via the Biorust Forums

[unleash]

looks great,
but im sorry to say, i think it looks like a plastic bag.....
but if you use it in an scene i think it would really work, iv already put it into work.....maybe i will post the pic, maybe not

[Andantonius]

Plastic Bag, eh? Don't see where you get that impression.

[c3400]

Plastic bag or not, but I think I like it! It looks more like that kind of water you may find in the middle of an ocean current. You know, all cruisy and stuff.

Of course I guess this is to work like a texture, but for you guys out there wanting to use this in an artwork or photo manipulation, here is my tip:
Make sure all the water stuff is lying on one layer. Then go to Edit > Transform > Perspective, and drag the upper corners of the square against each other. This gives the water a more real world look, as if it was thinning out by the horizon. Just like when you look at it from the beach. I hope you understand what I am talking about.

[Jacorre]

Nice effect, looks like the deep blue ocean.

[unleash]

i wasn't trying to say it doesn't look realistic....
it looks very realistic and is very usefull fo like an ocean shader...
when i was like 5 and i played with lego i always used an plastic bag for the water......so plastic bags do look like the ocean if this is true why aren't there any marine ships with plastic bags on it?

[Man1c M0g]

And this tutorial is now online over @ http://biorust.com/index.php?page=tu...tail&tutid=244

Thanks for another excellent tutorial Andantonius!

[c3400]

Originally Posted by unleash

...why aren't there any marine ships with plastic bags on it?

Haha! Dude, that idea is just so great! Tell the marine guys!