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hello this is vessel from chaos
in this tutorial we are going to take a
look at how to create an underwater
environment in maya using the v-ray
brender engine
we are going to start off with setting
up the scene volumetrics by using the
v-ray environment fog
next we are going to add some volumetric
shadows and create some countries in the
scene
after that we'll look at how to mimic a
caustic effect through the use of v-ray
decals
next we'll take a quick look at how the
plants in the scene have been shaded and
finally we'll set up the shader for the
air bubbles to make this underwater
environment complete
okay now let's get started
we have a simple scene here that
consists of the sea floor and a
character
there are several light sources to light
up the character
also there are some underwater plants
which at this moment are hidden so we
can focus on the environment without
anything else stealing attention later
on we bring them back to the scene
let's go ahead and start the ipr to see
what we start with
the c has a sun and sky all set to their
default settings
the first thing we need to do is to
create a volumetric environment
we can do so by creating a vray
environment fog
we can open up the render settings and
under the overrides tab there is a
volumetric rollout
we can tick the use environment volume
checkbox and select very environment fog
what we get is a black screen and that
is because the fog is just too dense and
doesn't let any of the light pass
through
let's go ahead and adjust that
let's start by increasing the fog
density attribute significantly
great now we can see the scene again
next we'll increase the fog height
attribute
by doing so we'll make sure that the
environment fog covers up the entire
visible area
from the sea floor to the water surface
the higher the fog is the darker our
scene will get
this is because the light has to travel
through more of the fog volume and it
will lose some of its intensity to
compensate for this we can simply adjust
the camera exposure
we already have a very foggy environment
to make it look like we're underwater we
can adjust the color of the fog to a
blue shade
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to make it an even brighter shade of
blue we can boost the color value above
1.
next let's set a color for the fog
emission to make ambient illumination
inside the fog slightly brighter
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great in several simple steps we've got
a pretty decent result
we can leave the rest of the attributes
in their default values
in this particular scene there are a
bunch of light sources used to light up
the character
by default a light source will affect
the environment fog in other words we'll
be able to see the beam of light through
the volume
this might be a desired effect if let's
say we need to create a flashlight or
something like that
in our case here though we need to light
up the character without the beam of
light being visible
so if we select a light source we can go
under options and uncheck the effect
atmospherics checkbox
i've already done that for all the light
sources that light up the character
if we select the atmosphere render
element from the drop down menu we can
see only the environment fog
it looks ok but to make it look even
better we can introduce some cut rays
it doesn't need to be a lot just a very
subtle effect to make the environment
feel more underwater
to accomplish that we need some geometry
to block some of the light
it doesn't need to be anything fancy
just a very simple geometry shape would
do
we need to position it so it suits the
scene and just like that we get some
subtle cut race effect
and again if we go to the atmosphere
render element we can clearly see how
the geometry is casting shadows through
the volume
alright another thing that would make an
underwater environment more believable
is caustics
generating caustics is a great effect
and especially in animation would be the
way to go about it
but it's also quite an expensive effect
so let's take a look at how we can make
caustics like effect through the shading
it would render way faster and it would
be absolutely okay for a steel image
like this one
the idea is to create a material and
project it onto the sea floor
for this we can use the v-ray decal
feature so let's go ahead and create a
v-ray decal from the toolbar and scale
it up
the v-ray decal gizmo has an arrow
pointing in the direction it will
project keeping that in mind we need to
position it in the scene
next we need to apply a material to it
since we're trying to make caustics we
can go for very light material or a
standard theory material with
self-illumination would also work
let's start the ipr
and as you can see the very light
material has been projected in the
direction of the arrow over every object
in the scene
great now what we need to do is mask off
some parts
we can use the texture of caustics as
our mask here
just like that we can have our
caustics-like effect
as you can see the projection happens
over the character as well
now i don't want that
so to fix this we can exclude certain
objects from the v-ray decal by creating
an exclude list
i want to exclude everything but the sea
floor
so we can use the as inclusive set
option and select only the sea floor
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now that we have all the environments
set up we can unhide the underwater
plants
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let me unhide one of the seaweed groups
and start the ipr to see what it looks
like
all of the plants have been shaded with
a standard furry material
as you can see some of the plants have
some sort of glow around them
let me show you how this effect has been
accomplished
we can draw a render region around one
of the plants in the front to focus the
rendering on it
as mentioned it's a standard vary
material and in the self-illumination
attribute there is a v-ray layer texture
plugged in
inside that v-ray layer texture we have
a couple of layers added to each other
so
let's enable only one of the layers to
examine how it affects the material
the first layer has a very dirt texture
plugged into it
the variant dirt is set to inner
occlusion mode instead of the default
ambient occlusion
and the second layer adds a thin line
around the shape of the object
this has been accomplished by using vray
for now
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relatively simple setup but it produces
a nice effect
let's go ahead and unhide the rest of
the vegetation in the scene
all of the plants have been shaded using
the exact same approach
let's also unhide the fish group
and give it a test render with all of
the objects now visible
the fish and the main character have
been sculpted and paused in zbrush
and later unwrapped in maya
the texturing part has been done using
substance painter
after that all of the exported textures
have been brought back to maya and the
models have been shaded using the
metalness roughness workflow
for more detailed information about this
type of workflow you can check out the
how to shade a character tutorial on the
chaos youtube channel
finally we need to shade the air bubbles
in the scene to make it look complete
let's go ahead and switch to a camera
that is focused on the air bubbles and
start the interactive rendering
for the air bubbles material we will use
just the standard very material and set
it out like glass material
let me throw a random region over the
bubbles area
we don't need any diffuse since the
material will be completely refractive
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let's set the reflection and the
refraction color all the way to white
okay now the air bubbles look like they
are made out of glass
we can use the thin mold option which is
intended for single surface transparent
materials
let's go ahead and switch it on
great the bubbles look way better now
since they look like soap bubbles we can
increase the refraction ior a little bit
now that looks much better
alright the entire underwater scene is
ready to be rendered now
in the render settings we can leave
everything in their default values into
our final render
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in this tutorial we've gone through the
process of creating an underwater scene
we've started by setting an overall mood
and environment using the v-ray
environment fog
we've then added some gold rays and
caustic effects
then we went through some of the shading
techniques used in the scene
and finally we went through the process
of making air bubbles to make our scene
complete i hope you have found this
tutorial useful and helpful and might
help you in the creation of your scenes
in the future
thank you for watching
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you