The boat is swamped!

[Rhee]

Help! I'm sinking!
I have searched through the wikis and also searched the forums here but i haven't managed to track down the exact info that i need. Hoping that some of you who are more experienced/knowledgeable can help me out!
I'm working in Blender 2.61, and i am trying to make a boat that is floating in the water. It's still very simple right now: a single plane for the water, and a roundish bowl-shape for the boat, because i didn't want to spend hours and hours modelling if i couldn't figure this part out first. When i lower the boat model into the plane of water, the plane of water appears inside the boat as well, making it look like i need to ge tout my pail and start bailing! How do i keep the plane from appearing inside the boat?

(if you are working in an older version of Blender, that's okay, please tell me your process... I have managed to use a lot of the older Blender tutorials to find the equivalent functions in the newer Blender versions! Thanks in advance!)

[Render]

Rhee,

It all depends on whether the boat is supposed to move or not.
If not, you can simply cutout a peace of your water plane where the boat is.
Assuming you boat has an outside and an inside, you could make the borders of the "cutout" be betewwn the outside and inside of the boat "wall".

If the boat is supposed to be moving, I think you are out of luck, at least I wouldn't know how to solve that, but maybe someone else does.

Greets,
Render

[Annabelle]

Maybe you should ask Corvus who helped Ametist with her floating & moving boat in her age Moysenland.

Her boat is fully functional. You just have to stand inside and you click on the boat, the boat will move to the dock on the opposite side of the lake.

[Karkadann]

If its a moving boat, would it be possible to create a false bottom just above the water level?

[dendwaler]

The inside of the boat can have its own visual region .but if the inside has windows, you won't see water when you look outside.
Still ,also with a visregion it can be tricky.when walking around itmight pop up again .
And if you can swim in the water ,you canstill swim in the air inside the boot.

[Calena]

If its a moving boat, would it be possible to create a false bottom just above the water level?

This is probably the best solution, even if the boat isn't moving. Or possibly model a flat-bottom skiff. It's easier and she can accomplish what she needs to do with fewer polys. She's working in Blender 2.61 with pyPRP2.0, so she can't make subworlds or VisRegions or wavesets. I think the most she can do is animate it on a continuous loop.

[Rhee]

Thanks for all the quick replies!

Yes, the boat does neet to move, but no one will ride in it.. it will just have a loopy animation thing. I know that i can't exprt as well in 2.61 as i could in 2.49, but i am slow at working so MAYBE there will be better/new exporting tools by the time this stuff is ready??? hah. Anyways, I will start trying out some of these ideas and see what ends up working best... I'm suspecting it will be the false bottom fix, but i'm gonig to try some of the others just to see what might work! Thanks again, and if anyone else has more ideas, feel free to post them, I'm eager to learn more.

[Karkadann]

Im working on a submarine, and am having the same issue, (my sub is flooded) im wondering if it would be possible to animate a hole in the plane representing your water and have it move around with the boat, so it looks like the boat is in the water and not on top.

edit to add
Possible yes, the problem is the mesh. Even when you use soft select its not gonna be the easiest animation and tens to make a mess.
what we need is a plug-in that makes an indentation in the mesh that you can animate.