Realistic Underwater Scenes ----------------------------------------------------- To create realistic underwater scenes there are many aspects that must looked at For example you cannot just create a scene with lights a few objects and have it look realistic In order to create a realistic underwater environment you must take in to account all aspects of life underwater Lights are very important underwater You cannot light the scene with a few default spotlights and omni lights you must take into account the depth and atmosphere of the water In the ocean light has different effects on objects The further you go underwater the less colorful objects get The atmosphere can be on of the one most single things that can enhance your scene Underwater not everything is crystal clear You can only see out to a certain distance because of plankton that cloud the water Some other types of methods to create realistic scenes are reflections of the suns rays hitting the surface of the water These reflections are called caustic refraction Lighting 1 I assume that you already have something to work with such as a submarine or other underwater scene 2 One of the first things that you can do to improve you scene is to add the reflections of the sun hitting the water This is achieved by projecting such an image onto a scene with a projector light I have included a projection map in my project file -note- As you go further down into the ocean the less of a reflection you will see Adjust the intensity of the projection accordingly to your scene 3 I usually light scenes with spotlights For underwater scenes I use low-intensity spots focused at objects I want to be visible Atmosphere Adding depth 1 We must now add some atmosphere to the scene This is accomplished by adding a depth matte In essence what this means is that we will create a alpha transparency map which will be used in the scene What this will accomplish is creating that fade to nothingness For example when you look a a huge submarine deep underwater you do not see the whole ship clearly you see the front clear and as you go down the ship you start to see less of the ship To create this effect turn off the background if you have any This is only part of a composite shot that will be put together with videopost 2 You must choose the materials for the objects In the materials editor lock the ambient and diffuse color values by clicking on the L button Mover the luminescence slider all the way to the right so that the color values are 255 255 255 Change the self illumination to 100% Apply the material to the objects within the scene and return to the 3D-Editor 3 Next you must set up the atmosphere Choose Renderer Setup Atmosphere and click on Distance Cue Define For the options set Near to 0% Far to 100% and Dim Background on -note- The way that distance cue works is by the ranges of the camera You can change these setting within the 3D-Editor You must define two ranges for the camera The first range means that anything between the camera and that range will not be affected The second range defines where the objects start to fade from the camera s viewpoint 4 The result should be a black and white image The objects that you want to be seen should be white If you did it right you should see that as the object leaves the camera ranges the object fades out to black You will use this image as a RGB mask for you rendered scene This will allow you to render the scene and have the objects fade out This will give the illusion of big massive objects 5 If you wish you can stop here and go on to the video post section The next step is not necessairly needed Atmosphere Plankton 1 If you ve ever watched documentaries that were done underwater you can see how the scene fades as you get further away from the objects You may also notice small specs that fly across the camera This is what the plankton looks like when it s close to the camera 2 This effect can be created with snow sxp 3 Create an AXP box and place it in front of the camera Follow these settings or what best suits your scene o Choose Object Attributes and click on the box o Assign snow ixp and change the settings o Number of Particles = 7500 o Object Flake Diameter ratio = 0 003 o Object Flake Spiral ratio = 0 1 o Snowfall Period = depends on your animation I used 60 o Random# Seed = 12345 o Wind Left Right = 24 o Wind Front Back = 37 o Chaos = 80 4 Hide all the objects and render the scene Make sure that you turn the option on to render in alpha mode 5 Now the final step Composite all the images together o Go in the Keyframer and choose Renderer Videopost o First use the original image and mask it with the RGB mask you made o Second use the image you made for the plankton Make sure to turn on the alpha channel 6 Render the scene