How I did a cave waterfall.

Eugee

So I was trying to do a simple cave for a battlemap I'm making, and I wanted a small waterfall spilling out of the cave entrance. I really like the Jon Roberts style pack, so I'm using those textures only. After quite a bit of toiling, I finally got the effect I was looking for--so I'm sharing how I did it now:

Attached is the basic map. Sheets used: WALLS (cut-out style), FLOORS (main cave), WATER (the stream in the cave), SUBFLOORS (the grass outside), and SUBWATER (the water outside). The water (fractal poly) on the WATER & SUBWATER layers are two separate polys--I just used TRACE to follow the contour of the ledge with both.

WALLS has 2 Glow effects (outer, black, 1, 0.5) and (outer, black, 0, 3). FLOORS has the same effects, plus another Glow (inner, black, 0, 5). In this starting map I also had a Drop Shadow, but I ditched it later.

WATER & SUBWATER have the same effects: Glow (inner, black, 1, 1) and Glow (inner, white, 0, 2). Adjust the black glow to be on top, so that it's "recessed" into the floor texture, but still has the white glow along the edge.

Eugee

Next, I added two more sheets: RIPPLES & SUBRIPPLES, placed just above the corresponding water sheet. (This is so the FLOORS glow will cover SUBRIPPLES.) I put the same two effects on both of them: Glow (outer, white, 2, 2) and Transparency (20%). Then using a 0.1 width white fractal path, I drew contour lines along the ledge just before the waterfall (rather tightly spaced) on RIPPLES with the spacing widening as I moved away from the edge. Make sure the Glow is on top of the Transparency. With the lines tightly packed, the Glow overlaps and makes a wonderful "misty" clouded effect. On the SUPRIPPLES sheet I drew more contour lines, but these were spaced out farther so the glow didn't overlap as much. The end result is attached!

Eugee

I also tried one more iteration, dropping the changing the Glow on SUBRIPPLES to (outside, white, 1, 1) which isn't quite as strong, making it look like a less turbulent drop. All in all I'm very happy with the effect, and I feel like it fits with the Jon Roberts map style quite well.

I hope this was helpful for anyone else struggling to put a water effect in a cave!

Dogtag

That looks nice. You might want to add some clouds of mist on the lower end to finish off the effect, but it looks good. How many sheets did you use to get the layered ground/cliff/walls effect?

The waterfall leads out of the cave, I take it? That looks like a fun place to have an encounter (or, more specifically, a combat encounter)! Thanks for sharing.

Cheers,
~Dogtag

Dogtag

LOL! That's what I get for being so slow in my reply! (I started replying after the first post). Ha ha ha! Looks really nice!!! And thanks for the details on achieving the effect.

~Dogtag

KenG

Nice thanks for explaining your process.
Ken

Ralf

Great stuff, waterfalls are always tricky!

Eugee

Thanks for the comments. My girlfriend took one look at it, and said, "The waterfall is flowing into the cave, right?"

I was like... how did she get that? Then I realized that for 99% of waterfalls, the TOP doesn't have white-water; it just drops off. So with that in mind I killed the RIPPLES sheet, bumped the glow up on the SUBRIPPLES sheet, and stuck a few rocks down there. Here is the finished map that I used it on:

Dogtag

I like the glow at the bottom better. If I can make a suggestion? I think the water at the top of the waterfall would look better going straight across the cliff edge, rather than following the contour of the cliff. Also, you might consider putting another white glow sheet over the rocks and give it some transparency, so the rocks appear to be within the mist.

Cheers,
~Dogtag

Joachim de Ravenbel

Very nice and thanks for you work and the sharing.

Posted By: DogtagI think the water at the top of the waterfall would look better going straight across the cliff edge

Good idea, or perhaps make the top of the waterfall more smooth instead.

Eugee

Yeah that's a good call. When I initially had the haze at the top, it covered up the jagged edge. I should have tapped the spacebar a few more times till it smoothed out a bit. I'll edit that edge for sure. As far as the rocks, I'll just drop them down to the SUBWATER sheet, they'll still poke through the mist pretty well that way.

Now I'm just sitting around anxiously waiting to USE this encounter map. We only play every other weekend for a few hours, so it's going to be months before we get to this map.

Dogtag

But your players will have a blast!

Eugee

Yeah, when we finally GET to this map. :P

They are currently crawling through an old temple of Baphomet that has been taken over by a nefarious necromancer. Once they finish with that I imagine there will be no small amount of social roleplaying about the skull laced with necrotic power a caravan driver asked them to retrieve (without telling them what it was), before hooks finally sink in to send them south to aid a rebellion and free a duke. Even then it will be awhile (and possibly not at all) before they happen upon this cavern. It's okay, they're going into this cave, one way or another. :P