The focus of the picture really are both orca and their fine skin details, so I don’t want to use Depth of Field. Problem is, my ocean particles (which honestly should just look like dust but another color) look like tiny bubbles, not dust. And further you cannot even see most of them in this picture, just a couple here and there.
I made an icosphere as many suggested (though I don’t know why that instead of a regular sphere)
My problem is, I need these ocean particles to look “fuzzy” and out of focus even without Depth of Field. How could I go about doing that? I jokingly thought I should make tiny gray furballs but something tells me that probably wouldn’t look good, haha… hmmm
Actually, I notice underwater debris is quite varied in shape and even color so I wonder how would someone maybe go about making that?
If it’s a still, I would just add it in compositing. Then you can precisely control the size and how they are visible. You can use depth pass to add volume if you don’t have dramatic lighting. Cheapest easiest way in my opinion. If it’s an animation, then it’s a whole different story.
If I am being honest, I would not expect to observe that in an image of an orca. I don’t think it’s a good idea to cling on to technical details too much and let them direct your artistic decisions. A better idea would be to observe reality, reference, inspiration images and see what makes them nice. I don’t think it’s skin details in this case. Lighting and atmosphere and a sense of depth has far more greater impact for aesthetics, realism, plausibility and visual communication in my view.
Thank you… I do look at orca all the time and for this specific image I’m going for something in particular. In this case the focus is the details on the skin. The picture is still a work in progress.
I’m also hoping to figure out the water particles in Blender because I will eventually make an animation and will need them for that. And sometimes I won’t want to use depth of field and I still need the particles to look right ^-^
I think you should use a set of more realistic particles that look like pieces of seaweed etc. Ball will always look like a ball, no matter how much it is blurred or defocused. Also if you want realistic deep focus you should use a depth of field with very high f-stop, something like 30. That should give you enough sharpness for the details you want to show but still get some blur for particles that are very close to the camera. That is how deep focus is done with real cameras, they will always have some depth of field.
Icospheres work well as numerous small particles because they stay roughly evenly shaped at very low resolutions. If you are using high resolution spheres, it doesn’t matter as much.
