Problem with coasts and shorelines... Help, please!

[Hibernated]

I'm new here (and to pixel art in general) so... hello! 

...and onto the topic, after taking in a load of tutorials I finally decided to try and pixel art a tile-set, for a simple game I'll be doing myself in game maker, just to try and get a grasp of the basic pixel art techniques and so on... but am already confused, about shorelines...   

My problem is that I can't figure out how waves should interact with my coast at different angles... how can I explain myself better?

...lets says that the waves are coming from the bottom right of the screen.

I get how they should look when they hit a corner tile at the bottom right of a beech, and how they should look on the bottom and the right tile, but what about the other tiles? With beech between them and the waves? Do they even have waves behind them? I have no idea!

I tried to look for videos and images but they didn't really help, and I couldn't find any tutorials on the subject or any useful tile-sets to look at...

Any pointers or links to things for me to look at would be appreciated 

Thank you in advance.
Hibernated.

[Rydin]

A picture of what you're trying to do and we can help from there? 

Like, are you talking about animating waves, or what?

[Hibernated]

Thanks for replying Rydin
I'm planning on animating the ocean tiles so waves head toward the top left of the screen.

Yeah, a piccy would make it clearer- OK, here's a quick diagram:

The yellow is sand, blue is ocean.
The dark blue arrows represent the path of the wave up the beach, and the lighter blue arrow is the wave coming back down the beach... What I need is for someone to add the other arrows if anyone done shore tiles before... or lives near a beach! 

I'm not really sure if my arrows are OK tbh...

Is this kind of situation normally avoided? I haven't been able to find any examples anywhere... even the few, professional, tile-based games I have just had still ocean, or random sparkles instead of waves...

[ndchristie]

....in a nutshell.  assuming these are pieces of a beach, not huge coastlines (because over a few dozen yards the direction of the waves usually changes)

basically, if the wave is hitting an obstacle like this one, the lower right will break evenly and have the largest waves because the water is flowing directly back under the advancing wave.  on the sides, there would usually be a compromise between the slope of the shoreline and the "bounce" of the wave hitting the sand (this reflection is muted by the soft qualities of sandy beaches - stone beaches generate much larger waves and are more about direct reflection).  on the other diagonals, the wave just cruises along with a bit of tumbling along the side where it wants to expand but is blocked.  on the far sides and corner though, because the prevailing direction of the waves would pass it, there is actually a small vacuum created that pulls water into that area, and where the two sides of the vacuum meet on the corner, there can be a bit of tumult.

[Hibernated]

Oh OK thanks ndchristie

I think that might explain why I've not seen it anywhere...

I think I would need extra tiles for transitions between the diagonals and the straight bits if that makes sense, so the waves could go around but remain flat along the shore on long diagonal bits
Also I'd need another type of wave tile to go behind so I can account for the changes in wave direction... Maybe I'll just keep my beeches flat, though I will give some thought minimizing the tiles needed...

Thanks again.
Hibernated

[Dusty]

....in a nutshell.  assuming these are pieces of a beach, not huge coastlines (because over a few dozen yards the direction of the waves usually changes)

basically, if the wave is hitting an obstacle like this one, the lower right will break evenly and have the largest waves because the water is flowing directly back under the advancing wave.  on the sides, there would usually be a compromise between the slope of the shoreline and the "bounce" of the wave hitting the sand (this reflection is muted by the soft qualities of sandy beaches - stone beaches generate much larger waves and are more about direct reflection).  on the other diagonals, the wave just cruises along with a bit of tumbling along the side where it wants to expand but is blocked.  on the far sides and corner though, because the prevailing direction of the waves would pass it, there is actually a small vacuum created that pulls water into that area, and where the two sides of the vacuum meet on the corner, there can be a bit of tumult.

Oh man... why'd you change your name? That was a bit confusing...