Effects for Underwater

LordEntrails · March 2018

I'm trying to put a few symbols, like skeletons and debris at the bottom of a pool of water (in a dungeon). I've put them on a layer and have tried (poorly) all of the effects like; texturize, adjust hue/saturation, displace...

Any suggestions on how I might make these symbols look like they are underwater?

Gathar · March 2018

Have you just tried to put the same water texture in a new sheet on top of them, but with some transparency?

Ralf · March 2018

As Gathar says, the easiest way is to out a partially transparent water sheet on top of the symbols. Note that you need to be working with sheets, not layers to achieve these effects:

- Move the underwater symbols all to their own sheet if you haven't already, like SYMBOLS UNDERWATER. Move this sheet to be just above (below in the list) the WATER sheet.
- Create a new sheet called "WATER TRANSPARENT" and move it so SYMBOLS UNDERWATER is between this and the WATER sheet.
- Copy everything from the WATER sheet unto WATER TRANSPARENT and give it a transparency effect of 50%

That should give the symbols a nice effect as if their are sitting below the surface. For even better effect, make the WATER sheet a little transparent too (say 80% opacity), so the underlying floor texture shows through.

Loopysue · March 2018

That should work

If you want to get a bit more complicated try this with your sheets:

POOL BOTTOM - a suitable sand or rock fill
SYMBOLS IN POOL - the stuff on the bottom of the pool with a very very faint shadow effect (very blurred and not too dark)
WATER - The water sheet with a suitable transparency and/or an edge fade inner to allow you to make the shallower water more transparent than the deeper water.

EDIT: or I should learn to type a heck of a lot faster when I've just woken up for the day :P :P :P Hi Ralf

Ralf · March 2018

*waves to Sue*

LordEntrails · March 2018

Awesome, thanks all

I did mean sheet and not layer. Will try it in a bit and let you see how it looks

LordEntrails · March 2018

Thanks again all. I'm probably going to play with the settings and the water fill color some, but I like how subtle the items are. Since in character, they may not notice it, so I like that it's subtle that the players may not notice it as well.

ScottA · March 2018

That's just a matter of adjusting the opacity. You might also want to add a very slight blur to the underwater objects.

LordEntrails · March 2018

For reference, I did not add a WATER TRANSPARENT sheet and just went with moving the SYMBOLS UNDERWATER sheet to above the WATER sheet.

The floor is the Natural Stone 2 SS4 fill. The water is (currently) Water Blue 1 SS4.

Effects are:
WATER: Edge Fade Inner (1, 90%, 0%), Glow (Outside, Med green color, Strength 0, Blur 1), Transparency (50%)
SYMBOLS UNDERWATER: Wall Shadow (.5, 30%, 1), Glow (Outside, black, 35%, blur 1)

LadieStorm · March 2018

actually, there is a tutorial that shows just how to do this. Look up Shessar's wonderful tutorial on streams and cliffs. I've used her tutorial to make lakes, combined it with LoopySue's ideas on waterfalls to make an ocean tide rushing in on a beach, they are very versatile.

LordEntrails · March 2018

Thanks Lady

Links to Shessar's as well as some other tutorials here: http://rpgmaps.profantasy.com/?p=3984

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Effects for Underwater

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