Hello, it’s my first time participating in RTVFX challenge.
I made a little particle based waterfall yesterday and this is the final result:
My main reverence was the waterfall from this artwork: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/8lQlRG
My version looks very similar and I’m quite happy with it. Nothing mind blowing though
So this was the first pass at the waterfall. Just a particle system with falling particles.
I wanted to have some kind of refraction for the water, which was very important to me at this point.
Therefore I wrote a custom shader and assigned the refraction material to the particles
Later I added a second particle system with a simple dust texture to fake the foam and splashing water.
I also added a color gradient on the waterfall.
Hi welcome. Nice job on your first sketch. If you’d want to push it more towards the reference consider working with the lighting some more. Lighting can really push the volume and realism or believability. I think the scene needs more directional lighting to help with that tho. Nice work so far.
Added a water splash effect on the ground. I use a particle system with the waterfall material and a circular plane with a scrolling texture.
Hello Kmitt,
welcome to your first Sktech participation! I am happy to see Godot getting some love in here as well.
Some feedback from me:
I wouldn’t make the color gradient that “harsh”. Yes liquids mostly get lighter when they “thin out”, but in the waterfall shown, the density looks to stay the same from beginning to the end.
I would do: Have it be quite opaque at the beginning and make it less opaque over time. Color over life would just be a very subtle change.
I personally have the feeling, that I can see the noise path. It looks like someone holds an hose and slightly changing the spawn direction. When observed, Water from pipes are either: very stable because of the tensions, clear pattern or has many layers of turbulence (rocks in the way, irregular waterflow, strong wind,…)
I would do: depending on the mood I want to provide either get rid of the noise (and maybe use a static mesh) or layer some particle systems with different noises, so I can have a strong center but a dynamic shape. (see quick crude drawing)
As David also mentioned: the lighting could improve, not only on the effect but generally the environment. I personally find the preview shading much more interesting to look at, because of the contrast of floor to walls. In the game view it all looks very flat to me and because of that, the waterfall also looks not as fitting in the scene. Of course, I don’t know what the scene is originally intended for (maybe the lighting makes sense for the gameplay) but I am just judging it for the effect.
I would do: Either muting the water fall colors, and fitting it more into the flatter lighting or setting up the lighting to have more contrasting colors in the scene (maybe lights hafts in the ceiling that let bright sunlight through, similar to your reference)
All in all it doesn’t look bad! I really like the refraction and how the “waves” texture looks. But with a few tweaks you should be able to make it even nicer.
Hope this helps! 