How can I make a realistic looking pond?

[Sir Taffsalot]

 

It looks too clean and unatural to me.

[Sotha]

Make a cylinder. Put a lot of vertexes for it. Drag and drag and drag until you have irregular shape. Cap the bottom of the cylinder patch. Remember to use manual patch tessellation to reduce excessive tris.

Texture. Add water and water sounds.

 

Very similar process as this, I'm sure:

http://forums.thedar...__1#entry304554

 

EDIT:

addition. Use end-caps instead of a cylinder. I think cylinder cannot have the end-cap for the earth-side, end-cap certainly can.

[Obsttorte]

Maybe you could do something similar like with streets. Create a patch 5x9 and shift the vertices to get it look like a falloff (the sides of your pond). Than let it close in a circle. You can use Bulge Patch to make it look more natural.

 

For the plants in the pond you can use SEED.

[Sir Taffsalot]

I've used two end caps to create the sides of the pond. However after changing the shape by dragging out the vertexes, none of the end caps work to create the earth sides.

 

[Sotha]

Ah, in that case you need to use the cylinder. You could do like this:

 

Put the cylinder on the ground (pink). Drag the topmost of the vertices so that the cylinder is bent. The cylinder projects the texture inward and upward after you drag the vertices. Looks like a top hat.

 

I've done this to achieve a mouth of a cave. Maybe it works for the pond as well?

[Obsttorte]

First create your hole

Than create a patch

and give it a proper shape

[Obsttorte]

Make it round

and bulge it (patch->bulge patch)

[Obsttorte]

Note that you may have to realign the end points after doing so.

 

Then add a 5x5 patch and drag the other vertices upwards. You can bulge it, too, to make it look more natural.

All the textures were paste projected.

 

Than add your water.

[Obsttorte]

This is how it looks in-game after less then 5 minutes of work.

[Sotha]

This is how it looks in-game after less then 5 minutes of work.

 

That's a nice pond or crater due to the elevated sides. The side elevation is of course trivial to fix, for a pond it would be a steady decline before deepening suddenly. The earth around it just needs to be accomodated for the decline.

 

Anyhow, this is good. Maybe you should copy paste this to the wiki, so it is not forgotten: "Pond tutorial?"

[Obsttorte]

Result with seed

 

And the map

pond.map.txt

[Obsttorte]

@Sotha: Will do once I find the time.

[Sir Taffsalot]

 

That is certainly one nice looking pond. Many thanks for the help Obs!

[Obsttorte]

No problemo

[Moonbo]

Hey Obs,

 

How did you make the patch round? That seems like a useful trick.

[Obsttorte]

The patch is 5x9. I just dragged the vertives into the right places. Note that you can select a bunch of them and use the rotate tool. Some are rotated 90/180/270 degrees (the odd ones: 3,5,7,9) and some are rotated 45/135/225/315 degrees (the even ones: 2,4,6,8).

 

This way you can build very funny things

 

I've uploaded the map, so you may just wanna take a look.

 

Here is how it is done with a 3x9 patch. If you want the middle to stand out, do it before you proceed with the following steps.

 

Create a patch (3x9) and move the vertex columns into the right places (roughly). The last column goes to the place were the first one is.

Than rotate the columns.

Get the vertices to there correct places. The lines connecting the vertices should be in parallel with the axes.

Select all Vertices and snap them to grid (ctrl+G).

Done.

[SeriousToni]

This needs to find its way into the tutorial section in the wiki at all costs!!

[Obsttorte]

Actually this is quite similar to the way caves can be created using patches. For the latter there is a wiki entry.

 

As said I'm going to add an article about the pond thingy, where I could put the above description in first.

[Obsttorte]

That's a nice pond or crater due to the elevated sides. The side elevation is of course trivial to fix, for a pond it would be a steady decline before deepening suddenly. The earth around it just needs to be accomodated for the decline.

 

Anyhow, this is good. Maybe you should copy paste this to the wiki, so it is not forgotten: "Pond tutorial?"

This needs to find its way into the tutorial section in the wiki at all costs!!

As said I'm going to add an article about the pond thingy, where I could put the above description in first.

Wikified: Pond Tutorial

 

[SeriousToni]

I really love to see how you thought of me when you were creating this guide, because you know that I'm just not made for geometrical descriptions, but many many screenshots..

[Obsttorte]

[demagogue]

I added a link to the FAQ page too.

http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Editing_FAQ_-_Troubleshooting_%26_How-To#World_Building

If you guys know anything else I can put on that FAQ page, let me know, or put it on yourself if you have access.

[Obsttorte]

Thanks mista.

[stumpy]

you should probably add some rocks, as they always seem to crop up in ponds in the wild, as if ponds form due to irregular patches in the ground due to rocks near water upwellings. there are some water springs near where my parents live and they seem to be if there's a lot of rocks in the ground then a spring is here.

Edited April 9, 2013 by stumpy

[Springheel]

The perfectly transparent water also looks a bit odd to me. We have murkier stuff, don't we?