Underwater

[LecturerAlan]

Hi Wavers

Does anyone have a very good underwater(ocean) tutorial, or know of one,
I have a project that needs a very persuasive background, very realistic that kind of thing.

LecturerAlan

Life is a sexually transmitted disease.
Anonymous

[richpr]

You might want to check the work in progress and finished work forums for similar stuff as well... I've seen some in the past...

And of course flay.com

[Adrian@Stufish]

I can't point you to a tut, but I can give you some thoughts as a moderately experienced underwater photographer, as well as a LW klutz.

Most important for 'real' is colour loss and low visibility.
ripply wavey stuff is for shallow water & sandy bottoms - although looking up in about 10m of water you do see a ripply surface plane, but only in a sort of circle above you.
For camera purposes all red light is completely gone by about 8m
So if you are using 'natural light' and are lower than 8m Nothing has any red/yellow/orange.
If you have a red light source and move it away from the camera it will be dim orange at 4m and at the best grey at 8m.
Very important to remember that in the situation where have artificial light sources near the camera, the colour loss is on distance travelled by the light NOT distance from object to camera. so a white light source next to the camera will appear to show the full colour of an object 1m away, but by 4m away the yellows,reds and oranges have gone.

This means that underwater camerapersons have to do 2 main things to get colour. 1) place light sources as near to the subject as possible. 2) use very wide angle lenses to enable the camera to be near enough to the subject.

The 'low visibility' aspect is easily accomplished by using a distance fog, it is very rare for a camera to pick up anything more than 20m away in best possible visibility. 12m is more realistic., and using a gradient backdrop for the fog alows you to go to from deep blue depths to a lighter blue towards the surface, thereby providing handy visual orientation information.
The visibility loss is due to the incredible amount of silt and plankton etc that fills the oceans, and cause another major headache for underwater photographers, namely that, thanks to ithe inverse square nature of the intensity of propagated light, the **** in the water near to the light source is incredibly well lit.

Cameras with handy buit-in flashes a couple of inches from the lens are a total no-no and an enormous cause of disapointment for first time underwater photographers, what looked like a good clear shot comes back from the processors looking like the inside view of a bowl of pea soup. - the microscopic particles in the water a couple of inches in front of the lens were lit a thousand times brighter than the intended subject, which is completely lost in the fog. 'Real' photographers have their flash guns (strobes) on the longest folding (weightless in water) arms they can get, - to position the light source as far in front of the camera as possible, and then direct the light so that it just catches the subject while illuminating the minimum possible amount of the water between the camera and the subject.

If you set things up as though you were taking care of he above, you will be half way there.
Otherwise just remember that everything except light moves real slow and smooth, and only divers give off bubbles.

Hope this is some help

[LecturerAlan]

Hey you guys,

Thank you very much for the time that you have taken in answering my LW problems, (check out the box jelly wip) this image is pre-advice so lets see if I can used the well meant info

Lec-Alan

And one more thing......Life is not a box of chocolates.

[surferjoe]

Originally posted by LecturerAlan
Hi Wavers

Does anyone have a very good underwater(ocean) tutorial, or know of one,


Check out
http://www.wonderlens.com/behindthescenes.htm

for an organic solution to such things.

[LecturerAlan]

Thank you.

Wow, so many differing ideas, always more than one way to skin the cat ....mmmm poor cat.

Thanks dude.... surfs up, as one might say to one who`s into surfing or something.

Did you see the image in the wip gal ?

"My doctor gave me six months to live, but when I couldn't pay the bill he gave me six months more."
Walter Matthau

[surferjoe]

Originally posted by LecturerAlan
Thank you.

Thanks dude.... surfs up, as one might say to one who`s into surfing or something.

Did you see the image in the wip gal ?



I still surf in the ocean. It's one of the saner things I do.

I believe I've been accused of water in the brain, like your gal. :D

[Adrian@Stufish]

The little B*****d looks great, but I seem to remember that most good jelly shots are taken from beneath - the little buggers mainly showing up because of their diffractive and translucent properties. definitely a case for looking at some stock shots and dupicating the effect !
- come to think of it if you find some decent stock shots of other real jellys and post them in WIP alongside your model shots people will be anle to make the most wonderous suggestions !
(PS I found that link to woderlens to be a good primer on how things don't look underwater, but that brings us into the philosophy of perception - do we make it look real, or do we make it look like the TV/Film industry have gotten people used to accepting as real. I suppose it depends completely on your knowledge of your target audience.)

[Justinw]

There was a tutorial in issue 14 of 3D World with a whale. Its a good starting point. Not sure if you can get hold of it anymore, but it was written by Ben Smith from Stormfront.

Cheers,

Justin W.

[bakasaru]

There was a tut in KeyFrame mag awhile back by Peter D Hunt (http://www.peterdhunt.com) . His site has a sample still and an animation, and there's a link to ordering the backissue if that's the underwater feel your after.

[korn_kid]

Theres an underwater scene file in ur LW content directory(it should be located in *LW Content Dir*\Scenes\Tutorial\Manta.lws).
U can check how they made an underwater scene with a manta swiming around.