And then there were polygons...

Psunami creates its water with polygons, just like 3D applications do. It generates these polygons by using a 'displacement map' (or, dismap) to push around a mesh surface.

In 'Wireframe' render mode, you can see the polygon mesh that underlies Psunami's water. This mesh is based on the same data set that generates the light-tracking 'Grayscale' modes.

Use tiles to create geometry.

In order to render its frames at a reasonable speed, Psunami processes a single tile (or, square unit) of surface information. Then Psunami repeats that tile over the to create the visible ocean surface.

In the 'Primary Waves' section, 'Ocean Complexity' lets you choose the tile size that will be used to calculate Psunami's ocean surface. 1-   'Preview Detail' bases Psunami's dismap on a 256 x 256 pixel tile. (top, left) 2-   'Video Detail' bases Psunami's dismap on a 512 x 512 pixel tile. 3-   'Film Detail' bases Psunami's dispmap on a 1024 x 1024 pixel tile. (bottom, left)

'Preview Detail' is fastest to render, of course, and fine for most situations. But when your camera is at high elevations or the mesh resolution is high, a larger tile size is useful for hiding Psunami's repeating tile pattern.

Raytracing for realism.

'Raytracing' is the rendering technique that Psunami uses to achieve its photorealistic results. This process is available in most of the professional 3D applications used for special effects production today. Raytracing is especially suitable for calculating objects and scenes with lots of reflective surfaces... like water!

Basically, the Psunami plugin shoots out virtual light rays from the camera’s viewpoint. The computer then traces the bends and bounces of these light rays around the scene back to the camera. If enough rays are sent out into the scene (potentially millions), the results can be highly realistic. Psunami will automatically calculate shadows, reflections and refractions [the bending of light through transparent surfaces].

As you might guess, calculating millions of rays can be a time-consuming process and its rendering requires substantial horsepower. Psunami has been specially optimized for speed in the After Effects environment, making it one of the fastest 3D raytracers available today.