Click here to download 24MB MPEG video of rain effect
Here are a bunch of screen grabs showing different parts of the video...it looks better in motion, so click this picture, watch the vid, and let me know what you think!
Here is a better resolution image [that wasn't taken from the video]...showing the lightning, and rain particles.
I ended up using a few layers of rain particles, they might be a tad hard to see on the video due to compression, but I use 2 scrolling layers of rain particles pre-rendered into a texture. I also spawn about 1200 dynamic rain particles around the camera. The effect is a nice thick sheet of rain, and it's not too bad performance wise, actually no FPS difference here because I'm re-using the same reflection texture for the river/ocean water with a offset.
The sky is rendered in 4 layers...
- The sky color texture applied to a skydome.
- The normal sky clouds placed around the skydome.
- A set of 3 scrolling "rain cloud" textures applied to a extra skydome, and faded in/out.
- 8 rotating sets of "lightning" clouds.
Here is a image showing the "lightning clouds" in relation to the skydome inside the model editor...
And, don't get too excited about the lightning it's a static texture...I was planning on generating the lighting dynamically using axial billboards, random branching, etc. it probably would have taken hours to code up, and wouldn't look as good as this texture does since it's only visible for a split second.
Also, I didn't go all the way with animated/dynamic water ripple textures. I didn't have time to add a animated water splash for particles when they hit the world That would probably make things look even better and will most likely be added in the next few days.
Other than that, there are about 8-9 different parts to this rain effect that get faded in/out. Well I'm happy with the way it came out. Any comments on the video would be appreciated.
- Dan
