underwater city?
dsmccurdy
Posts: 0
im looking for an underwater city tutorial and cant find one here. Would anyone know where to find one. Im trying to do something like rapture from bioshock. Interior and exterior. Would i just do an underwater scene tutorial with a city tutorial or is there an actual tutorial
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These might help...
Bryce light gel underwater effect - a 15 minute tutorial by David Brinnen
Bryce DTE > terrain skyscraper - part 1 - a 15 minute tutorial by David Brinnen
Bryce DTE > terrain skyscraper - part 2 - a 15 minute tutorial by David Brinnen
You can also use the terrain DTE control to create a heightmap to look like the shapes of buildings in city blocks. It depends on your level of experience with Bryce. Underwater is one of the hardest effects to create and, as it happens, creating cityscapes isn't that easy either. I would recommend getting to grips with underwater first and sorting out the lighting, then tackling the "city" afterwards.
Looking at online images and video of Rapture from the Bioshock game, the exterior shots of the underwater city could be achieved by going for an "even darker and more smoggy Bladerunner" look whilst adding some bubbles and the occasional fish.
In the pre CGI world of movie special effects, underwater shots were often achieved with "dry for wet" methods, where the model stage is smoked up and lit with blue gels. With a few touches (and suitable sound effects) these did a good job of simulating the dark, murky world under the sea. "The Abyss" is a good example.
So in Bryce terms, you're looking at using fog and haze, and/or volumetric materials to simulate underwater suspended particulates. Bear in mind that Fog and Haze do not respond to lighting sources within the scene. Volumetric materials can respond to such lighting but will result in longer renders.
I hesitate to counter the Bryce Master (David), but given the specifics of Rapture (self-lit underwater city at night), I would get a building with lights into your test scenes quite early on to see what effects work best for that particular scenario. This will have different requirements to scenes of coral reef in daylight.
This is the only underwater render I've ever done.
I used volumetric material for the water, render time; long. :)
Thank you all for the replies. Sorry it took so long for me to get back to you but i only have internet on my phone right now. would you by chance happen to have a pdf for those tutorials david? i may have to work up to them but i can still give them a shot and see what happens. trying to reply quickly, pjf thank you for the additional info i can use all i can get. nice underwater scene savage 64 have you tried a city yet?
Yes, I've done cities.... just not underwater ones. :)
As for David's tutorials, they are Videos, very easy to watch and follow, but I think you'd need more than phone access to get the most from them as they really need to be watched big and at high def to see the parameters and which buttons he's pressing..
Being on dial-up is a bit of a problem for video... I noticed that the last written tutorial on this page http://www.bryce-tutorials.info/bryce-tutorials.html relates to underwater. But as PJF suggested above, you might wish to build your city first and apply the underwater effect afterwards. This would not be my approach, but it depends what works for you best. I tend to try to solve all my environmental problems first and build the scene into the environment. But then again, I don't tend to build very complex scenes. For a complex scene, it may be better to approach the problem from the other direction as suggested, and build your scene and then work out how to make it underwatery.
More specifically, I said to bring in building + lights early on in testing the scene development.
I suggested that approach after looking at some images and video of dsmccurdy's design target. It's essentially a self-lit city at night with a very murky atmosphere. It is its own environment. Without the lights of the city, it would mostly be just dark (maybe some dim light from above; it's a bit ambiguous in the video). The buildings are illuminated by city lighting, and silhouetted by city lighting. There is a lot of varied interaction with the lights and the water (suspended paticulates).
That's how I'd handle this particular assignment - regarding the scene and environment as one and the same.
OK, I've had a little go at this...
Bryce 15 minute scene - underwater city effect - a tutorial by David Brinnen
Very nice scene, David. To me, it looks rather like a city at dusk or at night with a lot of haze or pollution in the air. Perhaps because the lights stream upwards. I like the scene but I don't get the underwater feeling.
Hmn... see what you mean. Maybe the image needs more degradation (and possibly fish). I'll try degradation first. Here it is blurred and rippled in PSP8. Better?
I think it looks good. Maybe add some bubbles.
Well... since we are going postwork crazy...
Yeah, that makes a big difference.
Thanks Frank! I just hope the "Bryce fundamentalists" don't decide to track me down and skin me alive for using postwork. Shhhh... don't let them know.
Nothing wrong with a tad of postwork.
It's a cool image. If the city was a bit further back in the scene, then caustics on the foreground sea floor would increase the idea of underwater.
I hate to burst David's bubble (ahem...'nuff said :), but I don't get an underwater city feel to any of them.
Depending upon depth, of course, I wonder would putting more light at the top of the edge of the image that then decreases towards darker light (yes, an 'oxymoron') work? Or, another effect, would putting in something like minute, semi-transparent wavy patterns (vertically, like one sees in gas fumes etc., ) across portions of the image work? Or would they work horizontally, too?
I've only ever seen one or two good underwater artworks, so they can be a bit 'picky' to get right.
Jay
Edit: Yeah, postwork is always an easy escape for all of us, but I like trying to avoid it (not always, mind) using Bryce, as it's quite a good practice to push its limits that little bit further, when one can. Said, he...like he knows what he's talking about - being a Bryce noob :)
Perfectly valid observations. Underwater is very tricky... I might have said that. OK, here's a further modification of the idea.
Bryce 10 minute scene - underwater city effect - made even more underwatery - by David Brinnen
I'm still not convinced. This one convinced me http://nibor.horo.ch/rr14/h14-02.html though it needs more city and less landscape, perhaps no "ceiling", no plants. The bubbles look good but where do they come from? They seem huge - or are near the camera.
I am beginning to suspect that more visual clues are needed, so cutting out the ceiling or the plants would detract from the impression of being underwater. Given the earlier explanation form PJF regarding "dry for wet", it suggests to me that underwater scenes have to be "sold" to their audience. Since "dry for wet" does not rely on the optical properties of water being substantially different from air. Filters and fog. I don't know. I'll come back to this later on, busy week ahead, so probably next weekend. Including fish or a sub with lights...
@David: I've looked through glasses of Seven-Up before and have seen bubbles exactly like the ones in the image. I would think, remembering how bubbles look from programs videoed from underwater, there should be more of a break-up to the bubbles as they rise. Like each bubble has several children huddled around them. I don't really get an in the water feel from this image.
Fantastic work, David. Am constantly in admiration of your Bryce knowledge, and intelligent use thereof, to rapidly develop convincing techniques.
I can see what the others are saying about the lack of underywateryness, but I think you're very much on the right track and it's just early days. Besides, you are trying to achieve the look of Rapture rather than textbook undersea, and Rapture can be quite unreal looking too, at times. The big ripples and big bubbles are taking things in the wrong direction though, I feel.
You are correct about the "selling" of the scene to the audience. For the puppet show "Stingray", the underwater shots were made on a normal model stage with a very thin aquarium in front of the camera to provide live fish and bubbles. For the unsophisticated junior audience of the 1960s, it was enough. "The Hunt for Red October" was done "dry for wet", as was the aforementioned "Abyss". Interestingly, "Das Boot" effects were shot in a tank but they still clouded up the water to increase the apparent scale.
Frustratingly, I was working again this weekend. Really wanted to take a crack at this too. Mind you, at my pace I'd have only managed three bubbles and half a halibut.
And that would have been your supper. :lol:
OK I had a go too... not sure what to think, it was all a bit rushed really.
@TheSavage64 - your scene convinces me. It does look underwater to me. It's just that the picture frame is dark, which would be a minor thing to correct.
Bubbles - don't forget the Particle Emitter, see video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-XVYh4O-hk - Bubbles are the perfect application.
@Dave: I like the scene, it does have an underwater look to it. Like the first image you posted. But have a question. I like the hazy look of the dome and background buildings, but shouldn't the foreground buildings be as hazy as the sub(?) on the left? I would also think the transport tube(?) would have a hazy appearance until it came closer to the viewer.
I don't think so because it depends on the murkiness of the water and the size of the scene.
OK. I've been having a bit of a tinker with this and a think. Thank you PJF for your kind remarks and comments, Dave for the example provided and the further prompting, mostly from Horo.
So... I've been using google images and having a bit of a look at real underwater images. What is most striking is perhaps the almost total absence of red and, by contrast the over saturation of blues and greens. Also, it seems that underwater world DOF is very strong. I don't know if this is down to some optical property of the water or the lenses used for underwater photography or some combination of the two. But I've noted that many underwater photo's look like miniaturised scenes. Something I usually try to avoid in my renders, but in this case, it is genuine. Finally, most underwater scenes are lost in murky blueness after quite a short distance - the chances of observing an entire city seem to be slim. So with this in mind I've had a bit of a play.
1 - the Bryce render - you may note there is a lurking presence http://www.daz3d.com/shop/cthulhu-rising
2 - I used "hardlight" in PSP8 recombining the image with itself to boost the colour saturation.
3 - having a bit of fun with a distance mask to create a design effect.
@David: I think the first render is the direction to go for underwater scenes. Especially with structures. Though I know what's being done, there isn't that total feeling that this is an image of something underwater. I've seen foggy days that give similar affects. Perhaps not the color, but the murkiness.
But at least fog does not make things go out of focus! I think to find some way of introducing some intervening layers of suspended murk may help? If I have time later...
@David: No, I think you've got the murk correct. What's missing is the variation of light that would be coming from the surface due to wave action. If you look into a swimming pool on a bright sunny day, you will see how the light motion of the surface causes different patterns on the bottom of the pool.
This same thing is going to happen in the ocean, but not to the same intensity as a clean pool. If you watch any programs filmed underwater, there are rays(?) always present if its been filmed during bright sunny days. It's like the light is dancing underwater. To me, that's whats missing in your latest render.