Simple Waves Daemon

 

 

This DreamScape Sea Daemon can be used to create simple waves. Waves generated with this Daemon are added to the waves generated by the SeaSurface (both results are summed). This daemon is generally used to create large, periodic swells to existing Sea Surface wave motion.

 

The Simple Waves Daemon is located within the Helpers section of 3ds Max under the dropdown menu titled DreamScape Daemons.

 

When Simple Waves is selected, you simply have to drag out the helper icon within any 3ds Max viewport. It's size is not important, but the direction it is pointing in is.

 

 

As you can see above, the Simple Waves icon shows the direction of travel for the swells that will be applied.

 

Now, in order to apply the swells to your existing Sea Surface grid, you have to go to the Sea Surface->DreamScape Daemons rollout, click on the Pick button then select the Simple Waves daemon in any viewport. At this point, the Simple Waves will be added to your existing wave motion.

 

 

Parameters

Height - This spinner controls how much the height of the wave swells will be. Higher values will produce steeper wave swells.

 

Speed - This spinner controls the speed of the waves. Higher values will create faster moving waves.

 

Spread - This spinner determines the direction where the swells come from. Higher values will add more waves that are moving from various directions.

 

When the Spread parameter is set to zero, only the waves from the dominant direction will be created.

 

Smooth - This parameter can create smooth waves.

 

Icon Size - Size of the viewport icon.

 

 

Details

The Simple Waves Daemon does not create waves directly on the mesh. Instead, it will create an internal waves matrix, which is applied later to the mesh vertices. As the waves matrix has finite dimensions you might notice a repeatable wave pattern on very large ocean surfaces (actually, on any Sea Surface mesh with dimensions greater than the size of the wave matrix.)

 

Grid Detail - This parameter controls the waves matrix size (true size is actually a power of 2.) Higher values will produce bigger and more detailed waves.

 

Grid Spacing - Sometimes you will need waves to fit the scale of your scene. With this parameter you actually scale the waves matrix dimension (not the detail). It's good practice to keep the mesh width/length resolution above Grid spacing.