One question, you use cylindric mapping and then only change the u v map position right? I didn't actually start trying this out yet, but would this work by moving the skin in only 1 direction? (Would it automatically move right according to it's direction land inwards?)
yes it will. if for example the ridge of foam is the top of the image you are using as texture then if you use cilindircal mapping the ridge will be pointing inward. changing the v (or U?) will then displace the texture upwards or downwards and thus inland or away from the island.
Very nice island. I especially like the water shader. I would have to agree though that the grass does look blurred in the photos and takes away from the overall effect. Perhaps that is just in the photos. What shaders did you use for this? are they your own or did you get them from somewhere else? I would be interested if they were ever released as a set or something.
Doing grass in that way is a bad idea for a number of reasons.. first it doesnt really look convincing as grass, more just a trick. Also it is very slow becasue of all the multiple rendering of the terrain and overdraw.
Does anyone know a cheap or free modeler which can do this type of bolean cutting? I'm not getting satisfactionary results with Wings3D here .. Would be nice if there's a free modeler which can do this,