It's stunning but I think the ripples should be toned down a bit. They should not be the same texture as the actual explosion. IMHO. Catlin

Cool, I was wondering about that.

If you have Pearl Harbor or access to it use that as reference. Those bomb splashes are all CGI and are excellent.

Suggestion for the ripples - use the same mat as the regular watter but up the ambience just a tad and set it to blurry edges. Flatten the toroids and place then just a little above the surface but mostly just below. The column of water should be almost a smooth white at the base and feather out as height increases. Try an AB blend heavier transparency at the top. Good luck and let us know how it goes.

I think the ripples should be the same color as the body of water, an explosion in water would produce a spray in all directions similar to nu-be's but more spiky, IMHO...

Thanks folks, I appreciate the comments and will try to fix it in the textures, but I am afraid I will have some more modeling to do. @Poppi. I modeled two parts of the explosion in Rhino and two parts in Amorphium Pro. Now I may throw in some metaballs to add the spiky spray, or maybe a terrain. Oh the ripples on the bottom and the splashy part above it were the parts modeled in Rhino.

Stunning and perfect. Great work GG. Catlin

The cloud makes a huge difference. Great job. Lin

looking much better, I would still make the ripples closer to the ambience of the main water layer though and use the blurred edges effect. One other point, how deep is the u/w explosion, if very deep (i.e. depth charge)the spray will be concentrated more vertically than you have shown, if near the surface (i.e. shell splash) it will be more radial/spherical. This difference is due to what is driving the gas bubbles, explosive pressure (radial)or buoyancy (vertical) by the time they reach the surface. Again getting there very nicely.

Great job, and I sgree with Incarnadine, just one more thing, the column in the center should not be so obivious, or should be expanded in width some, just a teeny weeny bit...and you've got it...=)

Thanks all I'm still gonna be tweaking on it, but all this transparency is really killer on render time.

I know! But for the final, it should be worth it. My final renders (1280x1024 typical) range from 1 hr to 7 depending on what I have going on in the image. (and that's on a P4 1.8G w/512 RDRAM!)

Shhh... Don't tell anyone that this post inspired me... I made a watery explosion with 2 terrains and 2 spheres. Heheh... ;) L8R!

Post something for the rest of us to learn from.

Alrighty then... Dunno how much this will help.
Click to see the pic of two terrains and two spheres.

Probably not the worlds best, but a little postwork and it would look good. :)

Thanks it always helps to see how someone else does something.