How would I create sediment plume - using Wilbur/FT?

[MorinarKencaid]

Any thoughts on how one would go about creating a sediment plume (i.e. the cloud of lighter and/or unsettled sediment washing from the end of a river into a larger body of water)? I'm using Wilbur and FT but have access and rudimentary knowledge of various other tools such as Illustrator and GIMP.

An example pic:

sediment-plume.jpg

Thanks all,

-- First time poster, long time lurker

[waldronate]

Your best bet is to use a fluid dynamics solver like https://nerget.com/fluidSim/ to solve the things for you (you'd probably need to find one with a few more features, but that was one of the first ones to show up in a quick search for things that would run in a browser and it offers a constant emitter).

The other option is to grab a satellite photo and go from there. It would depend on the scale of map, I think. Another useful search term for feathery plume like things is "algal bloom ocean".

[MorinarKencaid]

Your best bet is to use a fluid dynamics solver like https://nerget.com/fluidSim/ to solve the things for you (you'd probably need to find one with a few more features, but that was one of the first ones to show up in a quick search for things that would run in a browser and it offers a constant emitter).

The other option is to grab a satellite photo and go from there. It would depend on the scale of map, I think. Another useful search term for feathery plume like things is "algal bloom ocean".

I can find many images and had already discovered the same fluid dynamics app you linked. Was looking more for a way to put it on a map. I don't need it to move dynamically, just a visual representation for my players who will be undertaking the quest of determining what is causing the bloom as it will be the source of of great concern for the port city they are within. I'd like it to be realistic looking instead of me just doing it by hand. Didn't know if this could be done with Wilbur/FT or any of the many other tools available. If it's a manual paint with PS/GIMP and then just do an overlay, that works too, but advice on how to do that would be welcome as well.

[waldronate]

I don't think that there's a good way to do this with Wilbur or FT. FT can do image overlays, but they're not particularly easy to control (some folks like to do clouds this way; the plume would be exactly the same effect with a smaller covered area). Wilbur can use a single image as an overlay, but it doesn't support transparency, if I recall correctly, and its blending is pretty bad.

I think that this problem is best solved by using a brownish plume on a transparent overlay that you place in something like PS or GIMP. If I were setting out to do this task, I'd take my base map and sketch out where the plume would go on a separate layer. Then I'd do an image search to find a plume approximately the shape I was looking for. With a plume in hand, I'd remove the background color and flop the image onto a new layer in the base map. A little adjustment of opacity and possibly a bit if a light stroke along the edges would probably get a workable result. A lot depends on the style of the base map, though. Line art want line art elements, and hose usually need artistic ability, which is well beyond my skill set.