I spend the whole day tweaking around everything. I wish I had more time left. Note for me: start earlier next time xD
It was fun making the water shader and also very challenging figuring out how to make some falling leaves.
I hope you like it.
Hey everyone!
I’m following this forum for a while now and I’m exited to write my first post. I’ve just started recently with VFX and I thought it would a be a good practice to participate at this river challenge. So, here is my first WIP.
Also I’m very new in building a small river shader in UE4. Any feedback would be super appreciated.
Very cool.! I learned, still learn a lot from challenges, so nice move there! FOr a first post, nice work ;).
If i were doing this, I’d probably do the following
-Think about the speed this thing is going at. Because right now the speed of the distortion belies how much surface distortion (foam and other stuff) that would really be going on. IMO.
-I’d probably gather some reference also.
-I’d try to figure out a way to have the mesh generate a “splash” mesh, or some kind of foam when it intersects with another mesh.
-I’d also try to give this river some depth. Right now I cant really tell the scale of this river, because the light seems to be hitting everythign equally.
-I’d also create a mood board and gather rference for a visual target on what I twant this river to look like. Not what I THINK a river looks like, know what i’m sayin?
I dont know how to solve these issues haha, so i cant help you there, but those are the things I’d consider.
Wow, these are so incredibly tips! Thanks for your feedback!
I have a questions to what you said: what you mean with “splash mesh”?
I thought of making making a small river, more like a slow stream. I’ll post some updates this week.
(My answer comes super late. I’m sorry, I was very busy this weekend.)
Hey dude! sorry for not being clear. If im being honest “splash mesh” may not be the right phrase, but what i mean is; Figure out a way to have it so, when your 'water mesh" intersects with another mesh, it generates some white foam, (like you’d see in a fast rushing river). Thats what I would try to do anyways. I feel like that could be very clever/fun to figure out.
Aaah okay, that’s a cool idea! I will keep that in mind, thanks for the tip. Not really sure if I’ll use it in this river since I’m making (I’m trying ) a slow one.
Hey!
Really like the change in colour. The scrolling detail is nice.
As you’ve not got long left rather than trying to do splashes I’d slow the whole thing down and try to go for a calm, lazy river look.
You can get details along the edges of intersecting meshes to fake foam by lerping beween two colours based on depth/edge amount. (Think theres a node for this in unreal so no need to calc eye depth).
Nice work!
I have set up collision to “kill” (A) when it collides with a mesh and (B) spawns at the same location. Very important to set a “Lock Axis” module on the second emitter → Z Axis, so the (B) sprite is oriented vertically. Add more modules like velocity, acceleration and more. That’s it
great trick! thanks for the breakdown! i wonder if this would be possible with niagara in combination with a flowmap on the river. so that the particles don’t have an initial speed/direction but this would be controlled by the flowmap to make them follow the whole river…
) a slow one.
I’m using particles with an Event Generator in UE4. I will post a breakdown after the challenge. 
A little shame I didn’t add any depth blend.
