@David - first picture looks best to me. I’m with GussNemo about the haze. As far as light rays and caustics are concerned, it depends how deep down the scene is. Light may not penetrate far enough. The blurriness seems a bit overdone to me. Now there are two things to consider: how it looks in reality if you’re actually there, and how we got conditioned by the movie industry they made us to believe it looks (same for space scenes).
@cris: That’s a very good render. It took me a minute to notice, but that’s a nice touch of the small amount of bubbles on the right. I question if the surface would be that still in the ocean(?). Other wise, real nice.
Without submarines, scuba divers, fish or bubbles. Just trying to sell this on the lighting effects alone. Here’s another attempt for you all to contemplate. TA render, a dozen black fireflies removed in post. Render time 1 and three quarter hours. 144 rpp.
Without submarines, scuba divers, fish or bubbles. Just trying to sell this on the lighting effects alone. Here’s another attempt for you all to contemplate. TA render, a dozen black fireflies removed in post. Render time 1 and three quarter hours. 144 rpp.
That’s it! It looks wet and underwatery. Excellent.
rofl @David I may just be a “bloody colonial” (a.k.a. american) but you just have to love Red Dwarf! Time to go digging for episodes on netflix cause its been just TOO long since I’ve watched it.
Great scene and can’t wait till you can post the finished tutorial!
@David: I agree with Dave, that scene hits the nail on the head.
You have achieved a very good water look. You’ve used the right amount of haze, which coupled with the light settings, which coupled with the inclusions to the right of the left rock mound, produces very good looking rays that one would see as the water diffuses the light coming from above. IMHO, the focal point is the distant haze, which makes one wonder what’s out there. Had you not included both of those mounds that look wouldn’t have worked. The eye is then drawn back to the foreground objects, which look as though their picture is just being taken. So, when is the tutorial coming out?
@dwsel: That is a very interesting scene. It appears to be in shallow water, my first impression being of a closeup of a Salmon egg, with the haze being a Salmon digging a pit for her eggs. What else to add? Look at that scene again and ask yourself, what’s off to the right, in all the haze? Which I think is just right. Shallow water, perhaps a good loose looking small plant or two? I see a dark shape in the haze to the right. Perhaps a plant near that shape placed within the haze. Then a bit forward and to the right, a frond just appearing into the scene? Doing something like this would balance the entire scene.
Yeah, David, very convincing now. From the clarity of the water, I guess we’re talking somewhere in the The Caribbean.
BTW. I like how the bubbles look too, and get bigger as they ascend - due to the decreasing pressure allowing them to expand naturally outwards.
On bubbles in general (and not a criticism of those in your image as they work quite well, too), but sometimes bubbles aren’t always bubble-like. Huh??? Yeah, sometimes when they move upwards through the water, particularly after release closer from their inital source, osccilation within their volumes causes them to have additional ‘bubble-bumps’, and so one doesn’t get a perfect spherical bubble, but several oval-like ones (on their sides). Ha…bubble-expert am I
Thank you Jamie, I gather from your critique and suggestions, you are formally trained in the appreciation of art?
Jay, yes I know exactly what you mean about the bubbles… now… if displacement worked… or it was possible to drive instancing distribution over an objects surface using the material channel. Then these bubbles could be created procedurally - which would be fun!
And Jamie, did you miss the link I put on the post above yours?
(based on the 1st jellyfish 
