Hi again. I’ve elaborated on the tram station idea by beginning to model an ocean setting. This is another piece from the story of The Dig. Tram spheres (little glowing balls that you climb into) roll through tunnels that go under the ocean to outlying islands from a main station.
Pictured here is my tram sphere rolling through a tunnel underwater. Once again, I’m going for realism, and even though this is pretty outrageous stuff, I’d like to try and make it plausible.
Thanks in advance. 
heh, as it happens, I have been playing “the dig” again… I noticed that my scummVM can actually run the game… it’s still a GREAT game.
in your picture here, there are some problems with the camera position, lighting, or something. it’s quite hard to understand what it is…
also, the water is not very… wet.
.b
i cant see anything, too dark!
Looks okay. Are you going by the reference image I posted? Kinda looks like the same sorta shot.
With all this Dig stuff going on, I’ve been working on making one of my favorite scenes from it as well. The shot where you see the “asteroid” ship departing earth after the team accidentally activates it. I have a great reference shot of it, but I’m having trouble getting the ship textured right. Basically it reflects stuff, which I’ve been able to get it to do, but it also has some swirling colors (kinda like the colored effect you get from a soap bubble or a cd, sort of rainbow like swirling) that have been eluding me. When I have it a bit closer to looking right, I’ll post it, try and get some suggestions for improvement.
now that i can actually see it (im @ home now), it sounds like a cool idea, but needs a lot of work.
Any ideas? 
I’ll turn up the brightness, too.
subsurf the ring things, make the ground less uniform, add more detail & shape (perhaps) to the sphere. add more of the spheres. add motion blur, and generally add more detail. i hope that helped. 
A little post production done here. how is it now?
Here is the image without the distortions: http://www.iamsane.com/soren/artwork/cocytan_ocean2.jpg
The distortions may have in fact made it worse.
ditch the bubbles
Looks good, but I think the main problem is the tunnel. It just doesn’t look very 3D - you can’t really see its curvature much. Not really sure what you can do about this…
I’d keep the bubbles. Softer and more subtle volumetric halos would be nice. The distortions seem to make the things supporting the tunnel look much better but make the sphere look much worse.
Nice texturing by the way.
Thanks for the feedback so far. I think for now, I’ll keep the bubbles. However, I am curious to hear other people’s opinions on things. Also, I’m still going for realism. Is there anything that you think would more accurately depict an underwater scene? Thanks in advance
UPDATES:
COMING LATER:
Photoshopped version:
http://www.iamsane.com/soren/artwork/cocytan_ocean3post.jpg
Wow, no replies hardly at all…
ADDED:
flora and rocks!
distorted bubbles!
COMING SOON:
even more detail
even more realism (I hope)
animation!
Feedback and critiques, please!
That’s getting to look really good. I need to dig out “The Dig” again and see if I can get it working on my computer. I still love how atmospheric it was.
Even if that darn bat puzzle was silly.
-Iain
The ring helps with the whole tunnel curvature- prior to it I kept thinking this was some sort of underwater bobsled run—oooh, an idea–
As for realism, I’d try deforming the bubbles and making them flatter, large bubbles get a bit distorted as they move upward through the water column.
Cheers, JJ
Sorry for not replying sooner…
The update looks much better, especially the bubbles.
I don’t like the plants though, they just don’t look right.
I never played The Dig, so I don’t know if this would be accurate, but some motion blur on the glowing sphere would be nice. Make it a bit brighter too. Maybe a few fish…?
I’d definately like to see an animation.
ANIMATION!
http://www.iamsane.com/soren/animation/cocytan_whale.divx
I think this is just about ready to move into the Finished Projects area. 
I need to make a longer animation, I know.
Feedback, critiques, anything! Thanks!
That was so cool! The look/feel is just about perfect!
Two quibbles: The bubbles are rising too fast (and larger bubbles in the ocean are not round as they rise; they instead look kind of like contact lenses wobbling their way to the sea surface. Check dive videos to see what I mean) and there’s basically nothing going on in the upper half of the screen. Perhaps put the whale up there?
Or just call it good. The lighting is spectacular, as is the motion of the tram itself!
Thank you for sharing this!
-Iain
Looks great ! Especially the animated shadows/lighting ! I’d like to see more of the whale and you’re right : it should definately be longer. Maybe just a bit brighter too.
Plays at a very poor framerate on my system though, unless I rescale it to a horribly small size…
how about another tram tunnel in the background like i think there was a broken one somewhere or a satue or something gives it a bit moe atmosphere or one of those turtle thingies u bring back to life only to be eaten
I wonder which Light did you use? Because just spotlight can cast shadows, but i dóes not look like a spotlight because it shines in all directions.
