how do they DO that?

[[s§s]Bison_Boy]

has anyone noticed just how beautiful the maps are in the demo? I find the ShangriLa map to be especially stunning. Can anyone explain how the waterfall/ waterwheels are done? They are 3d so its not an animated texture yet there is a distortion shimmer effect from/ on the sheet of water in front. What do you call and how do you make such a distortion sheet?

[Matfei]

Might be a particle effect - or something similar to the method they used for the biogoop/blood globs

[DGUnreal]

I haven't looked closely at those specific map objects, however, using NormalMaps, Distortion Material, and Particles, are some of the cool new features.

[Six Ways]

Distortion effects are easy to create - they're just another material property in the editor. Each material has diffuse (texture), opacity, emissive (bloom etc), normal map, specularity map and distortion channels amongst others. You just apply a greyscale texture to the distortion channel of a transparent material and it'll distort things behind it according to the greyscale texture. Add a panning property to the greyscale texture and the distortion moves. The new material editor is amazing - it makes effects like this incredibly easy when you get used to it.

[[s§s]Bison_Boy]

Thanks, it looks like distortion fields are used extensively in UT3 demo and I can't wait to try it, sigh where is my preorder! I shoulda bought it in the store I'd a had it by now! :(