Hey guys,

I recently 'completed' a project and wanted to post it:

http://www.envision-graphics.net/video/BairdMada.html

^^  Right click and open in a new window

Anyways, that's about half the final size but was looking for some CC.   In my free time, I'm going to supe some of this up and rerender so I'm looking for comments on what to fix and what could be better.  There are also a few errors I want to iron out that we simply ran out of time for.

I really want to improve the caustics in the underwater section...along with getting it to look a little bit more like underwater...any tips?  Should I switch to a volumetric atmosphere for that part?

Any and all comments are appreciated.

-Ryan

Wow, looking great.  It is hard to judge without knowing the context and hearing any sound.

One thing that bothered me was near the beginning the water has oily globs or artifacts that move distractingly.

The second thing that could be done better is when the camera goes under and out of the water.  Maybe if there was a better transition or a splash it would be more appealing.

The third thing is the clouds could be more realistic.

Thanks for sharing.  Was the render time long?  What version of vue was this animation made in?

Made in Vue 5 Infinite....so no spectral atmosphere unfortunately.

I'm unsure how to control the 'globbiness'...it's the open ocean node with standard tropical water material...it's just what the material did unfortunately.

**Thought I don't use or have Vue, I would think that the bump on the water could be greatly reduced and still have effect but I don't know Vue so it may be a problem with the program as well.

I agree with the camera drop, it's not necessary but would add realism with a splash.

As I believe Vue has animateable clouds I'd give the a small amount of motion...nothing that's more than barely noticable though, or it'll come off fakey.....

Sound would add more than 50% to the realism with good sound F/X.

Hope you find these observations helpful.. ...**

Are you saying that if you change the material for the water to white, than the globs are gone?

 If they are still there, they may be shadow artifacts.  

If you turn off cast shadow for the water material are the globs still there?

What did you apply the open ocean node to? and Infinite water plane, or a terrain that was placed over the ground? If the latter, the 'globbiness' is a case of the waves dipping below the ground plane; I noticed when I stepped through the transition above and below waterline, I saw two distinct layers with a gap between them. Lowering the wave offset on the node, physically raising the wave plane so that the intersections don't happen anymore would be the easiest fixes. You might want to play with the scaling on the water material, to see if that has a better effect for you. Definitely add some cloud motion; it will be a tweak job to get the right feel, but would be worth it in the end I think. I would suggest looking to the large structure details. There should be some kind of textured effect to the buildings, as they are usually built of either brick or corrugated metal. That would make it less CG-ish. The simple orange texture on the crane needs to have some character to it; color variations, possibly some procedural rust added, again to kill the CAD look. There are details there that the simple colors do more to hide than bring out. The only other things I can think of: 1) a little more work on the camera. The pan and dolly is fine, but there are places where you could bank the camera to produce a more natural feeling, and break up the single plane feel. 2) Maybe an ecosystem plane of a few birds passing overhead in the long shots, or note if there are any decorative trees or plants in the view you are rendering. That would also break up the CG feel a bit. And definitely add some sound; water and coastal noises for sure, and if this is a project bid, maybe you should check out Sonic Fire Pro; probably the cheapest way to get a good score together. It's what Phoul used for the V5 & 6 promo reels (can you tell he got me hooked on it...? ;P) Overall what you have is quite good. Most of what could be added falls into the realm of tweaking and cleanup. Good luck!

Hey guys, thanks a ton for the responses...I'll try to respond to them all:

**CobraEye: **
Yeah, I noticed the globbiness too.  I cant figure out what does it...I think it's the direction of the open ocean node mixed with the direction of the sun.  Notice it doesn't happen right in the beginning, it's when you start getting more vertical and looking the other way.  If it was my guess, it's the refraction and reflectance of the water material that is causing the issue.  I posted 2 images below...one with shadows on for th ocean material, one without.  Could the # of internal reflections and refractions cause this?

I'll add maybe some sort of sound when you enter the water...a splash of sorts.  I need to smooth that part out a bit too and get the caustics more fluid.

Clouds I can work on...man I wish I had Vue 6 for that part.

BobbyStahr:
If it were a plane, I could see the bump size being the issue.   Who knows, maybe it is somehow.  I'll definitely take a look.

I will be adding sound in the near future.

Dale B:
The OO node is applied to a terrain that is higher than the ocean floor.  I double checked the ocean up close and it never dips below the ocean floor.  The elements I have are:

1. Terrain - Open Ocean
2. Seafloor - Imported geometry
3. Infinite Ocean plane below that for the horizon line
4. Infinite ground plane beneath that to cover the places where the seafloor doesn't reach.

All other notes are...noted.  I'll apply some of it for sure.

Lastly, I'm posting the Vue file with only the breakwater, open ocean terrain, and sea floors contained if anyone wants to play around to see if they can fix it or find the issue.

Vue File Below...

http://www.envision-graphics.net/water.zip

2MB is size...

Update:

Here are some images I rendered out with some possible issues....

Water Casts Shadows

Water Casts NO Shadows

Water Reflection/Refraction Number = 15 (5 is normal)

Water Bump Set to 0.2 (1/5 of original size)

Water Set to Pure Blue to Check Ground Level

**So, I ended up liking the shadow casting version better as it's darker and a bit more rich, but I think we can now rule out that it's:

1.  a shadow issue
2.  the ground plane above the open ocean terrain
3.  amount of internal reflections/refractions within the material.
4.  a bump map issue

Blaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah to problems like this...haha.  The globs are identical in each version.  Help is appreciated.**

Good change. The open ocean fractal drives the terrain so really doesn't need to be procedural.    
The globs were my only complaint in the original.  More details as mentioned above would be nice.  Details may be more important on the focus items in the video.  
Near the end as the camera comes out of the water, there is a tug pulling away that seems to be going way too fast.  I believe it pulled out earlier in the video.  Great work!!  Send us the link to the final. 

Quote - I may have found a clue.  When I switch the procedural terrain to standard terrain the globs are gone.  The procedural terrain is somehow causing the problem.

Hmnnn.  Genius!  It likely has to do with Vue not using the detail from such a distance.  I thought it HAD to be procedural to use Open Ocean.  Would have probably NEVER come to this answer.

And yeah, the tug is moving a bit fast...I'll edit and rerender.  Thanks for the help guys.

Unfortunately, changing the terrain to standard renders the open ocean function near useless.

Waves no longer form like they did...it's more of a movement look...like it's sliding to the left instead of waves being created.  I'll post a larger video in a bit here.

I'm getting much better renders by adjusting the clipping of the procedural terrain, raising the quality slider for the terrain, and turning off fast shadows for the terrain.

However the water is much darker and may be masking the problem.

I am using a very weak computer to do these renders so I am unable to increase the render quality.

I'll try some of that too and I greatly appreciate your help on this.

Fast shadows didn't seem to do much...neither did the quality boost.  For this image, boost is at +4.0.  it's gotta be with the clipping.  I clipped it to a range of 0-50.0 and here is the result...

Better...not there yet though....

P.S.  Also, a change of the bump map has no effect on this.

Another note...it's not a shadow being cast either.  I took off shadow casting the the blobs were still there...

Cool, it looks much better.  

Hi Ryan,

As I wrote on registered users forum, from what I found, it comes from the 'Fading out' parameter of the water material.
Push the slider back to zero and the artefacts will disappear.
Push it to the right and they become even more visible...
at this depth anyway you probably don't need it.
It seems that there is an incompatibility with proc terrains and fading out.

Paul

I was a little too enthusiast with fading out:
It did not solve the problem for low vision angles.
But at least it made me discover the reason for these patterns: they are holes in your terrain!
The terrain has clipped altitudes.

To compensate for that, you'll need to modify slightly the filter of the altitude function so that all values are within range.

Hope this will help :)

Paul

^^ I thanked you on the registered users forum...but that you again.  It worked  :)