Because shading is turned off for the ocean plane, you need a preview plane to see displacement and shading in the hardware
render. Displacement changes the surface of the ocean plane so you can see the different wave heights. By default, when the
ocean is created, Maya also creates a preview plane that interactively shows the displacement of the ocean on a shaded patch
of ocean. You can scale and translate it to preview different parts of the ocean. This plane does not appear in renders. In
the following steps, you will scale the preview plane.
To scale the preview plane of the ocean
- Dolly back in to the center of the plane.
- The preview plane should be selected by default. Choose the (Hotkey: r) and make the patch bigger by dragging the center scale box to the right. Make it approximately 25 times bigger.
(Look at the scaling numbers in the help line.)
- Play the simulation using the playback controls at the bottom of the Maya window.
The preview plane ripples slightly showing the small wave displacement.
- Light the scene to prepare it for rendering later in the lesson:
- Select . Maya creates a directional light called at the center of the grid.
- Open the and in the section of the tab, change to 2 to make the light brighter.
- Click the tab and rotate the light as follows to direct the light rays onto the ocean. Rotate: -100 42 20
