2 - Novice Transparent Water

[moonsense715]

Author: r34ch

Skill level: 2

 

 

RenX Stage

 

OK This tutorial goes through how to make the realistic water from the link below, translucent. So I'm guessing you've already set up the water plane with the tutorial below *Hint*

 

Realistic water tutorial

 

OK so select the plane you want translucent. Hit 'M' to bring up the material editor. Firstly in the properties tab, make sure you have ticked static sorting and set it to 1 (should do this by default) Otherwise the water will seem to flicker at different angles. Also set the material type as "Water Permeable", so projectiles go through it. There should be two passes from where you set up the realistic water from the tutorial linked above.

 

Click on 'Pass 1', then 'Shader' and change blend mode to 'Alpha Blend'. Leave everything else.

 

Click on the little TV screen. Scroll down to find 'Vertex Colours'. Check this. Click on 'Shaded', This will mean in the next step when you colour the vertices they will change colour in renX. (just helps to see)

 

Change to edit vertices so the little blue cubes appear. Select the cubes in the areas you want translucent (or select all if you want it all translucent)

Scroll down to 'Surface Properties'. Click on colour and change the colour to Grey (halfway) This will make the water translucent but will still keep the water effects (i.e. not make it completely translucent)

 

 

Click on the hammer to see the W3D settings. Open up W3d export settings and click 'vAlpha' so that the game renders the alpha blend (and so makes it translucent) If its the sea your doing, click 'vehicle' so boats and subs can use it. Also click 'projectile' so projectiles leave splashes, but make sure the water is set to 'water permeable', otherwise boats can't hit subs.

 

Notes

 

When making a level in renX, anything that is made translucent like in this tutorial must be saved on its own as a different file, and deleted out of the original file.

 

I.e.

'MyMap' would contain all the terrain etc, but the water deleted.

'MyMapWater' Would only contain the water from 'MyMap', no terrain.

 

LE Stage

 

Now when you go into LE and 'make' the ground and water separately, both can be toggled hidden within LE. When you are ready to compute vertex solve, click the instances tab and deselect 'MyMapWater'. This will 'hide' the water in the level in LE. Now compute vertex solve while the water is hidden. Once the lighting is done, check 'MyMapWater' again to show the water. Save. Export to mix.

 

If you do compute vertex solve with water on your map in LE, it will turn white.

 

 

 

 

Many thanks to Raapnaap - For basically showing me how to do this, so he deserves most credit. I just wrote it up and took pics to help other people.

 

 

r34ch