Haven't posted anythign in a while, but that's because I haven't really done anything in a while...until now.

This is my Ship of Lost Souls that I am working on.  I go the the title from a song called Dark Avenger by Manowar.  The line in the song: fron the floor of the ocean, the Ship of the Lost Souls rise.  That's the background on it. 

The problem that I am having is making an acceptable silt/dirt cloud underneath the ship caused by dislodging itself from the bottom.  I've been trying to use different clouds/smog and they are OK, but I can't get the color right to match the ocean floor.  Any suggestions on how I may do this?

Also, should there be some sort of skeleton crew (pun intented) and vegetation in the back and foreground?  C&C welcomed.  Click on the image to see the full size.

Thanks

BOOMER

'Tis 'The Black Pearl' for sure.!!

maybe you could "photoshop in" an overlay for your cloud or otherwise trick the eye into believing it is there by using partially transparent 2d picts . 

vegetation, rocks, a bit wavy water, some creepy horrible mean sharks, dust clouds, and barnacles on the rocks.

You guys have been reading my mind. 

Biker:  I was thinking of doing that in photoshop, but I want to try and do it in Bryce first.

Erosiaart:  Those objects are already on the list to be put in.  Not sure about the wavy water, though. 

I do want to try and put in some caustics on the bottom.  Anyone have any ideas on how that's going to go?  I thought about uding s gel on the lights, but I'm not sure.  Also though about adding a plane below a light.  Experimentation is in order.

I tried to picture how that would work. I don't see caustics working in the area of the mud cloud but outside that area why not? Using the right filter(gel) with your lightsource would give you the caustics. It's been over a year since I tried this and I used something I believe was called "caustics generator" to build the gel. It worked well as I recall, but I got carried away with the effect and it looked a little gaudy - in my defense I was in a hurry.

The Caustics Generator website is currently down. Here's the link anyway for when they fix it. I can't find a copy of the install file yet but can post it when I find it if you want. 

http://www.lysator.liu.se/~kand/caustics/

The Gel works better with infinite light and a low brightness. Make your gel as big as caustics generator will go with as many foulds in the light pattern as possible, otherwise the pattern is too big.  I used a round light up high and changed the gell mapping to cubic to make the pattern size even smaller.

You have the option to create a blue pattern or black and white. Black and white works best for me because the blue pattern stains the light as it goes through. If you use black and white you can change the color of the light to yellow green or blue and see how it affects your scene.

If your gonna do a caustic light effect on the ship then make it VERY subtle - otherwise you'll obscure the drama - and cause undue distraction from the nuances of the central subject of the image (the ship).

ALSO - make the underwater dust / sand billows (dust clouds) very shallow around the bottom of the ship where it's hull makes contact with the reef.

If sharks then only put one or two in - one in the foreground - and one distant just beyond the ship. Your probably tempted to put as much cool stuff as you can cram in into the pic - which is, for the creative soul - a very logical and understandable desire - but I would advise against overcrowding the picture because you could ruin it and create annoying topical overkill. Sometimes less is more.

Just a thought (and the reason for it)..

When I 1st looked at this pic, I immediately thought "It should be lying over, not standing upright".Then I read your text, and realised why it's upright.

So then I started thinking about ways to make it more obvious that the ship is rising. And something popped into my mind...

What if you were looking up from below the ship, instead of down from above it?...

Might make it more obvious what's supposed to be happening, especially if there was sea-weed trailing down from the ship, and it might look more dramatic...

As I said, just a thought (and it might mean that you can dispense with caustics/mud-cloud etc..)

Cheers,
Diolma

try using a terrain with a volmetric cloud on it for the silt/dust

Thanks for all the replies, everyone.  I'm at my girlfriends house for the next couplke of days, so I won't be able to post any updates, but it seems like I've got a bit to try when I get home.

 Biker:  Not going to go crazy at all with the caustics.  I'm figuring this thing is pretty deep so the caustic effects will be very slight and not in the mud cloud.  If they do show up in the cloud, I'm figuring that I can just Pshop them out.

 Glyph:  I've seen the caustics generator before and went looking for it.  Like you, I found the site to be down also and couldn't find anywhere to get it.  If I am able to get it somewhere, I'll try your suggestion of the black and white.  Also, thanks for the tip on the lighting effects.

 Mugsey:  Like I replied to Biker, the caustics will be very light.  I'll make them strong enough to notice them, and weak enough not to kill the image.  The dust cloud that I had in mind was going to be falling away from the hull as it rises and billowing slightly as if the debris was falling back to the ocean floor.  I had the same thoughs on the sharks...just one in the background, really, to add the element.  In the foreground I'm thinking some rocks with some coral growth here and there, but no too much.  They aren't the subject matter.  It is easy to overcrowd and I though of that as I was i've been working on it and trying to visualize.

 Diolma:  Not a bad idea, but that changes the scene into something completely different.  Maybe after this is done, I may give it a shot.

 Dawg:  Good suggestion.  i will try that and see if I can control and limit the cloud by limiting the amount of visible terrain.

It was distributed under the GNU license.

quoting part of the readme in caustics generator (quotes left out so the link will still work):

This program is released as free software under GNU GPL.
See http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html

I think this means that anyone can at least distribute an unmodified and complete copy of the software to you ? ?

Don't forget the bubbles.

Cheers

GG.

Caustics Generator

Found it and put a copy of the zip in my file locker. Just click on the link.

Awesome!  Thanks, Glyph.  I'll be home tomorrow for a while before I have to go to and I will be able to grab it from you then.

Biker, thanks for throwing that in there.  I wasn't totally sure about that and didn't want to ask for it and figured on waiting for the site come back online.

GG:  Not a bad thought.  Maybe some that were stuck in the muck.