Digital Art Zone

I am trying to learn how to set up under water scenes. I followed a tutorial on Youtube for one which came out ok but not particularly noticeable in the scene. I found the “water reflection” gel in the special bryce folder so that was a plus. I tried another tut for underwater rays, ok but sparse and unconvincing. I have a couple of questions:

1. How can I make my own water reflections gels
2. Where can I find some?
3. Using the term “caustics” doesnt bring up much in a search, is there another term to use?
4.  The underwater rays -how does the sky lab affect these? I am using a sky as the underwater colour. Sometimes the volume light rays show but usually they do not. The sky is cloudless with a high haze as suggested.

I’m going for a somewhat tropical sea. Not too murky but not crystal clear either.

I’m not very knowledgeable about the light lab, I’ve learned what a few of the buttons and sliders do, but I’d like to get on with my scene. I didnt use volumetric slab because I don’t want to render for hours.

Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated

My fav way of doing it is to add a infinite plane across the top of the watrer volumetric slab, and use a caustic map with alpha, then shine a spotlight (or two or three) through it from some distance up, to provide a simulation of light beans through the water throwing a caustics shadow on the gound plane.

That is just my way. I look forward to seeing what other suggestions you get.

As with everything else in Bryce there are several approaches depending on your needs. If you are using Bryce 7 pro then you are in luck with the new lights. The Parallel Lights in Bryce 6.3 and earlier were not truly parallel at all. That is the reason for the new True Parallel Lights. Along with this improved accuracy, there is also much more control.

There are two considerations. The first being how to generate the caustic image map. The second being how to apply the map to the scene as a gel.

You can obtain very useful caustic maps from this application:

Caustics Generator
http://www.dualheights.se/caustics/
 
You can also use this map I can provide for free generated from Bryce procedurals in the DTE. Thank GOD for the videos and other items from David and Horo! Save this map to a location you can easily identify.
 
1. Create a True Parallel Light. By default these lights are aimed downward. Enter the Light Lab
2. Select Use Gel. Also, Click the Procedural Option. ( It is always best to choose the procedural option for this allows you the full options of the material lab)
3. In Slot A select the little P and enter the Picture Editor.
4. Click onto one of the available squares and a dialogue to load an image will pop up. Load the caustic image of your choice.
5. Make the Mapping Mode World Cubic. If you are using the free image supplied below then set the scaling to -5.6 along all three axis. Exit the Material Lab. You will be taken back to the Light Lab.
6. Along the left side of the Light Lab there is an area for the True Parallels controls. Enable the Infinite Width Option. Now exit the Light Lab.

You should now have a caustic that extends into eternity very easily.

Bryce really is so much fun

more…

Cool info Rashad….I have bookedmarked this one for future use.

Thanks so much Rashad, this is awesome

@Chohole

thank you for your suggestions. I tried a volume slab and it wasn’t too long to render, well, just for a sphere and a cube. I realized the spotlight with the gel didn’t have to be above the 2nd water plane. I’m still experimenting with the slab idea. i

Sheesh! May I say it has been very difficult to get onto Daz in past week? Time between pages loading was 45 seconds each, if they loaded. Not my pc, other sites fast enough for me. I also got timed out I guess, trying to reply to your post. This will be shorter, LOL!

IceScribe

@Rashad

thank you for your suggestions. Also for the diagrams and the caustic. I am looking forward to trying these steps, too.

IceScribe

Glad I could help. I did this silly mermaid image usiing the way I desccribed.

Wow Chohole! That image is amazing!. Seriously impressive!

What’s silly about that pic cho, it is great. I am eager to do a sea scene when I have enough content for it.

That’a just gorgeous, Chohole

Very nice, indeed!

Hi everyone!
I just came back home for a few days from our rainy camping and discovered it’s raining even more where we live…LOL…While waiting for a better weather I’m killing the time reading posts in new DAZ forums.
I just found this thread and may be my old caustic freebie can help someone. I made it long ago (2005) in mensioned above free “Caustics Generator”. All textures inside my zip are absolutely free for both commercial & private use. No copyright here whatsoever. I just hope someone finds those caustics useful and they may save you time in making your own.

Link here: http://www.renderosity.com/mod/freestuff/index.php?username=tyllo
(It’s in the middle of my Rendo free stuff).

Those tiles are only 400x400 PNG, but they’re seamless so you can fill new 800x800 canvas with them and get larger texture for your needs.
Sending greetings from rainy Sweden - Teresa T.

PS Also waving to Pam!  Congrats on your beautiful render, you’ve got such a fantastic underwater effect. Absolutely Top notch!

Waving back to Teresa, HI there.  THanks for this , I am sure I had that somewhere, couldn’t find it, so glad to get a new link for it.

Hi again everyone,

@chohole -your underwater scene is great! Lots of lights everywhere!

@Theresa Tyllo-thank you for the freebie caustics they are just what I was looking for

Ok, I’m posting my latest effort in trying to combine characters from DAZ into Bryce, getting the underwater caustics and light. I gave up the rays for now.

I realized that the diver hoses had become disconnected when I posed in DAZ-always check the other side, I remind myself. So I just cropped for now. Rotating each of the mermaid and diver in Bryce caused more separation of parts even though each was a “grouped object” That was an unepected glitch. I had to rely on the camera which I’m not so good at, to position, so the lighter part of the undersea was lost.

I used a combination of Chohole and Rashad’s suggestions. It’s still a little dark, but I got a great sand ripple shadow from the surface, and the watery reflection from the light gel preset. I had a problem with the mermaid, it would not fit through the “send to Bryce” pipe, so I exported as an object, but the eyes and hair got messed up, and the names of the meshes different. I had the hardboiled eggwhite eyes, so I deleted the corneas. I recolored the hair how I’d imagine brassy blond would look under water. The diver went through the pipe ok, well except for the hoses. Anyway this is an idea of what I am striving for. Credits: Water caustic/Rashad; Diver/Cybertenko; Mertail/LostRealms Thorned&Mada;/ Bra/MartianPrincess/MatchMaker; Hair/Hongyu; Corals/Transpond