The technique I use in my waterfalls is really simple. I use Photoshop 7 to make the alphas, then bring them into Vue 4 and adjust the diffuse/ ambient/ luminous settings in the material editor.

Make the basic rock structure in Vue. Get the cliffs, lighting, and base water setup first so that you have an idea of how you want the fall to flow.

In Vue select the render area that you want the fall. Render to screen fairly large and save it. If you’re using volumetric lights you may want to skip this step because of render times.

Once this is done,open the image in Photoshop. If you chose to do it without a background reference like I usually do then make a new image around the scale that you want to make the fall.

In Photoshop create a new layer, fill it with black and set opacity to 0 for now (no need to if your free handing it). Create another layer. This is the one we will be painting the fall on.

Chose a spatter brush and set the color to a light white or whatever you color you like. Set the opacity to around 80% or so, then in the brush settings turn on scattering and adjust to how you need it.

Lightly make a stream down the image. This is where a stylus would come in handy if you have one. Hit a few places with different opacities to get the effect you want. Be sure not the hit the sides of the image, straight lines make alpha planes look bad.

Take the eraser tool and select a spatter brush with it as well. Turn scattering on and set the opacity around 25%. Lightly hit a few places, most often around the bottom.

Once you have it looking the way you want, set the black fill layer opacity back to 100% and Save as bitmap.

Make a new image with the dimensions of a square. The bigger the better quality. Use the same technique as the stream to make the mist that will lay flat on the water.

Back in Vue, create an alpha plane and use the saved bitmap for both the color and alpha. Invert the alpha picture. Do the same for the bottom mist.

In the material editor, adjust the diffuse/ambient/luminous settings until satisfied. Turning off receives shadows is also a good measure. Usually luminous is around 50%-70% on the fall. Scale and rotate the planes according to your camera/POV.

That's pretty much it. Some other notes are to try different brushes. I don't just stick to the spatter ones. Dry brushes work good too. Often I leave PS open with the fall image to make adjustments to it if I need to. Looking at real waterfalls is an obvious one. I usually do a google image search for waterfalls. Getting waterfalls to look good in Vue takes patience. Pay careful attention to lighting and shadows. POV is a big factor of how good one will look as well. This should at least give you somewhere to start.

If you make anything cool from this, message me or say something in your comments. Feel free to save the images shown to try them out.

Check out my gallery, especially "Illustria Falls" and "Suspended for a Moment" on what can be achieved with this technique.


Josh Wallace 2004
zeekpunk@hotmail.com