This is a quick spilled water tutorial. We will use Photoshop to create a spilled water texture and apply it on a 2D rectangle. This rectangle can go on any surface we want.
We’ll start in Photoshop, creating a 1024×1024 pixel image. We chose 1024×1024 because using powers of 2 in Photoshop when using the clouds filter will yield tilable images.
- Make sure the colors are black and white (D key)
- Apply Filter>Render>Clouds
- Apply Image>Adjustments>Threshold
- Apply Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur with an 8 pixel radius
- Apply Image>Adjustments>Threshold again.
- Repeat steps 4 and 5 if not satisfied with the roundness of the contour of the “spilled water”
We should have something like this. This will be the stencil map
Save the Stencil Map.
For the bump Map:
- Apply Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur with an 8 pixel radius
- Move the Curves of the image so that the lightest color is 50% gray.
Our bump map
When using Strata 3D CX 7, we can take advantage of normal mapping. Convert the bump map into a normal map using nDo (download here) or other tool.
The Normal Map
Back in Strata 3D:
Create a new scene and apply a Reflected Environment. This is important.
Create a horizontal rectangle and apply a tile texture to it.
Copy and paste the same rectangle, and move it up a little (0.001 inch will do).
Remove the tile texture to this second rectangle and apply a new texture, based on a water texture.
The spilled water texture
Control the size of the texture until it looks good. We should have something like this.
If you can, use a Normal map because it improves a lot.
Spilled water using a Normal Map instead of a Bump Map
