How do you create realistic ocean?
scottidog2
Posts: 319
I bought "Carrara Realistic Seas" by PhilW but it is not giving me the realism I'm trying to create.
Trying to create a mermaid coming out of the ocean with waves all around her.
Creating realistic ocean is proving to be very difficult.
Any advice would be most appreciated.
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When stuff is not looking "real" it is usually a problem with the lighting... What is your light setup?
Using image map for background with skylight turned on. Also water plane has 30% Reflection, 0% Highlight, 100% Shininess.
Even with skylight turned on you will probably need conventional lighting as well. Highlights just don't really happen very well under IBL. And any scene with a lot of wet in it is going to be very dependent on highlights.
Without seeing your image it's difficult to say what is or is not happening...
I also try to find reference images online when I am working on my shaders/lighting. Having some reallife images of the ocean looking how you like, is a lot easier than stabbing towards a vague idea in your head...
Thanks Holly, I know what you mean. I do have ref images for everything I try to create. Will post a render soon.
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Yikes, crank that shininess down to 15, Highlight to 100 and try that! For starters
The above is likely your biggest drawback - where your lighting sounds fine.
(original specs)
Try not to over think the render settings - which is often over-kill and adds a lot of unnecessary time to the render.
Especially when testing.
cridgit, you got some nice images on your site. I know about Reality and lux. Wish there was Reality for Carrara. But I love Carrara and want to get good using it.
I could be wrong, but I feel that Carrara doesn't really need lux or reality. But that's just me, and it would still be great if the possibilities were available. The big thing in Carrara is getting those shaders and lights working right with each other. Then Carrara can render out some incredible stuff!
Dartanbeck, I totally agree with you. Carrara deserves more respect.
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cridgit, once you use Carrara, theres no looking back on Daz Studio or Poser. Trust me, I started with Poser but found it frustrating, then played around with Daz studio and finally I discovered Carrara. If there was anything better than Carrara for handing Daz and Poser content then I would be using it. It does so many things but with so many features comes the learning curve and effort to get really good at it.
It is always great to meet another Carrara cheerleader. Dart sometimes gets tired and needs a rest, so it is good to have others out there too. :-)
As for realistic seas - the product - here is a render that I did with it: http://www.flickr.com/photos/garstor/8405446370
Like Dart mentioned, lighting is almost everything. I played around a lot with this one and imp0emented some great advice from the forums.
I would tend to disagree with just about all of the advice given so far, except for the part about using reference images.
First I would recommend being a bit more specific about what you are trying to achieve. There are 3.76 trillion different effects you could be trying to achieve.
Are you looking for a relatively closeup shot of a mermaid coming out of the ocean and flipping her tail and splashing with 4 foot waves reflecting off her?
Or are you looking for a mermaid gently rising from a gorgeous blue and clear subtropical ocean with a white sand floor?
Or are you looking for a long shot of a mermaid coming out of a stormy sea?
I think you get the point. There are many, many different types of views of oceans.
But the point I more specifically disagree with is the view that it's all about lighting in this situation. Personally, I don't think so. Why? Well, a couple of reasons.
First because typically when you're near an ocean the main light source is the direct sun, as well as bounce light off the sky. Not a whole lot of subtlety.
And secondly, when you stand by the ocean, or sit in a boat, your are looking ACROSS the water. And when you look across water you get a great deal of what's called Fresnel reflection effect. All that means is that the ocean is far more reflective when you look across it than when you look down from above. And when it's very reflective the color you're seeing is, for the most part, the color of the reflected clouds and sky. That's why a clear tropical ocean on a sunny day is a deep blue, because the sky is a deep blue, and that's what it's reflecting.
And if you aren't looking across the water at a shallow angle, but from above or at a steeper angle, you'll see more of the water's transparency, and depending upon the depth of the ocean you might even see the ocean floor. And with that you start to get into the more complex shaders, because water does some strange things to light depending upon depth.
Anyway, with an ocean I think its mostly about the shader, and also in some cases the mesh.
By that I mean that if you are trying to model real waves in a closeup, don't forget to consider something like displacement mapping or even manual modelling of the waves. Or, if you need it, use a fluid sim (such as Blender's excellent fluid sim) to generate an object that looks like splashing waves.
Sorry, I can't recommend a drag and drop solution or a detailed tutorial.
JoeMamma2000, I'm looking for a relatively closeup shot of a mermaid coming out of the ocean and flipping her tail and splashing with 2 foot waves reflecting off her.
I just love your no nonsense, straight to the point logical reasoning. Your advice is always practical and useful.
Want to create something like this.
There's a bucket load of post production work in that image,
As far as I can see,. the water drips are Photoshop brushes which is the easiest way to do a complex water effect.
the Water colour is driven by the reflection of the background "sky" image, which is possibly the most important part of the image
If you want to create the cresting wave behind the figure, you'll need to model it, then you could either add the breaking spray by using a particle system, or take the easier route and add that in post.
For the ocean,. in carrara,. If you have Carrara Standard,. or Pro, you can use an infinite plane with a watery shader (see exampe shaders included with Carrara)
If you have Carrara Pro, then you can use the Ocean primitive,. Or,.. use Brian Orca's Ocean plugin
The Ocean Primitive is a Sub-Division primitive (like the terrain) but,. with a controllable "Wave" animation system
The default Ocean resolution, uses pretty low values, to make it faster to work with and render.
the default size is also pretty small,. but both of these can be increased to create a larger and more detailed body of water.
However,. the larger and more detailed surface will also take more time and processing,..
So,..
Another method is to use the "Replicator" to create a grid of ocean primitives, ... there's a option in the Replicator settings to make the objects "tile seamlessly" and this allows you to create a Medium scale ocean primitive, with medium detail,. but extend that for miles in you scene, without the overhead of using a large scale,. full detail ocean.
Hope it helps :)
"Another method is to use the “Replicator” to create a grid of ocean primitives". Good idea, Thank You.
I have Carrara Pro so will have a go using the Ocean Primitive with Replicator.
The geometry of the ocean will play a part as 3dage mentioned, but also the shaders as has also been mentioned. Since the geometry in Carrara is basically just a skin with no volume, you need shaders to give that effect.
Joemama touched on some of the more complex shader options you may need to give the illusion of depth. Freznel effects are one component. The others are refraction and under transparency, Absorption and In-Scattering. I wish I could tell you where to start with those effects, but so much of it is dependent on the camera angle in relation to the water and also the lighting. This is where I'll disagree with Joemama: Lighting and shaders work hand in hand in Carrara. What may work in one scene under certain lighting conditions may not work in another with different lighting conditions. Not all ocean scenes are in a brightly lit Caribbean setting, so what works in one of those scenes may not work if you're trying to show a rocky coastline in the North Atlantic.
Straight up Carrara Render - No Post-work. Used the Carrara 8.5 Pro Ocean Primitive. Will buy Brianorca Ocean Plugin in a few days time and play with it. Still got a lot of things to get right, specially the Ocean but am happy with the way the Octopus rendered.
Edit: Yeah... cool job on the octopus! :coolhmm:
very nice image . I think the author here using Photoshop effects filters which can't you reach on these small software but if you use the Max or V.Ray you will get more good results
but if you professional on Photoshop you can easily and rapidly do it
The DAZ Studio - Reality - LUXRender pipeline can produce quite realistic ocean water. This is using the Breaking Waves prop.
Ahh, okay, now we're getting somewhere....
That's a beautiful image. Though I think you can do better. The splashing, to me at least, could use some more dynamism and power, rather than the rather skimpy splashes that don't quite seem to fit. If you've ever seen a big fish jump out of the ocean, or splash down and do a belly flop, like a big whale, you get a sense of power and can FEEL the action. So I'd suggest you look at some reference images, get a real sense of what you want viewers to FEEL, and then start working.
Again, if you're doing a closeup I'd recommend using a real fluid simulator to get a realistic mesh, and generate waves and splashes as they would actually occur with a mermaid splashing out of the water like that. And then maybe even exaggerate that a bit...
I would play around with the Blender fluid sim and make some splashes until you get what you want. Far too often people generate something that kinda looks a bit like their fuzzy recollection of the last time they saw the ocean which was 23 years ago. And most of the renders you see don't give you the sense and feeling of something real, and people tend to dismiss it as amateurish.
Although the advice of the experts in this forum will probably serve you quite will, so whatever floats your boat..... :)
I think you're misunderstanding or just missing my point. But anyway....
I think you're misunderstanding or just missing my point. But anyway....
It's possible, but anywhoo.... ;-)
Okay...now the most obvious thing I'd mention about your render is this:
There is no motion whatsoever. It is a very static and "dead" image. And while most people here focus on what plugins and software you should use, the far more important consideration in generating an image is communicating a feeling to the viewer, and deciding what feeling that is.
In the image you posted the feelings are beauty, dynamism, other-worldliness, calmness, and some others. In the render you posted there is only subject. Girl, octopus, and something that kinda looks a bit like water. No motion, no feelings, no story, and very stiff.
If you focus only on the tools, what you will probably get is something is lacking. Decide what feelings you want to convey first, then search for the tools to do it.
And again, one thing I keep stressing over and over is this:
Objects must interact with their surroundings. It's an extremely important but often overlooked concept.
If a girl is in the water, and the water is reflecting the sky, the water should probably reflect her image too. And if the water is water, you will probably see a bit of her body that's underwater, especially near the surface. And if there are waves in the water and there's a girl and an octopus in that water, the waves or ripples will probably interact with them and you'll see some little ripples as they bounce off, and some splashes as the bodies enter and leave the water.
It's those important subtleties that, if missing, tend to cause viewers to disregard the image. And it's not difficult stuff, it just requires some thought and consideration.
Oh, and another by the way...
If you want to get a sense for the motion and physics of objects jumping out of the water, try searching for videos of something like whales breaching. My internet is dog slow so I can't give any examples, but it might give you a sense for the motion of the mermaid and how the water splashes and reacts.
Think about what her tail is doing to make her leave the water, what her hair is doing, what her body is doing, and think about how the water would respond and try to duplicate that, and even exaggerate that. You might soon realize that there ain't a plugin around that can do that for you, and you might need to try a different approach.
Another option to mull over, but would require some more shader optimization, is the idea of using Nerd3D's Splash Tool. I'll be buying it eventually, just because I'm trying to collect all Nerd Environmental-type products. It's a long story of artist appreciation. I've used the Waterfall tool in the Thunder River product, and I really like the performance. They're more of a Poser-style effect of moving, animated props. Since Carrara works great with content, it's an option. The Rain Tool has the falling drops (from editable buckets, above), in one tool, and splashing drops as they hit the ground in another, and an individual splashing drop tool for spots where raindrops might hit something before hitting the ground.
Basically, all of Nerd3D's Tools of that sort are a solution for those who either don't have particles, or would rather not use them.
Carrara has all of these great benefits of a working particles system, so you really don't need to even think along those lines. Particles in Carrara are quite simple and fun to set up. Here's a fine selection of enjoyable Cripeman tutorials on the subject:
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