Ocean

Category: mental ray > Displacement

Shader Family: Texture

Output: Color

This shader simulates realistic waves over a large body of water. You can control the look and feel of the ocean by adjusting the waves' height, roughness, speed, direction, etc. The Ocean shader can even create a looping animation, with a specified number of frames in the loop.

Name	The name of the shader node displayed in the render tree. Enter any name you like, or leave the default.
Largest	Sets the size of the largest waves in the ocean.
Smallest	Sets the size of the smallest waves in the ocean.
Quantity	Sets the number of wave sizes that are produced between the Largest and Smallest waves. Increasing the number of sizes will give a rougher look to the ocean.
Steepness	Controls the roughness of the ocean. Smaller values give a calm, flatter ocean, and larger values give a rougher, more active ocean.
Relative to World	Wave positions are relative to the world center, so that the wave patterns of two adjoining grids are aligned.
Relative to Object	Wave positions are relative to the object center, so that as the object moves, the wave patterns move with it.
Base Plane Normal	Specifies the vertical axis direction relative to the coordinate system origin. The ocean effect applies only on a vertical axis.
Base Plane Distance	Specifies the vertical axis distance relative to the coordinate system origin. The ocean effect applies only on a vertical axis.
Directed	Activates a rolling waves effect.
Direction Angle	Controls the overall movement of the waves. When Directed is off, the effect produces a directionless choppy ocean.
Wave Speed	Controls the rate of movement of the waves. The default value of 1 is a good choice for a scene where one unit is equivalent to one foot, and where the animation is at 30 fps.
Loop Animation	Forces a looping animation.
Loop Frames	Controls the number of frames in the loop. Smaller numbers create a less realistic ocean.
Flats	Real oceans or lakes have differing areas of roughness: some regions can be fairly smooth, while other areas are rough (these variations are caused by the effects of gusting winds). When on, the Flats effect simulates these differing areas of roughness.
Size	Controls the size of the differing areas of roughness.
Variation	Controls the variation between the differing areas or roughness: lower values cause less variation and higher values cause greater variation.
Bump	The Ocean shader creates its effect in one of two ways: bump and displacement mode. As a bump shader, it creates the illusion of a rough surface without actually changing the geometry, similar to a bump map. Ocean is best kept in Bump mode, since it gives a very nice wave effect without requiring additional geometry, and therefore does not significantly slow down rendering times. As a displacement shader, it creates a greyscale image for the shape of the ocean, with which it displaces the actual geometry of the water grid, using the displacement feature of mental ray. As with all displacement mapping, the object in question must have enough geometry to properly resolve the shape of the displacement map. This usually results in extremely long rendering times. If you wish to use displacement, a good compromise can be achieved by connecting the Ocean shader twice: once in bump mode for smaller waves, and again in displacement mode for larger waves.