Hey, I’m new here, I was just curious when this challenge is over. Sorry if I missed a post on it. Looks like a lot of fun! Can’t wait to start
Lighting Challenge #5: Under The Boardwalk
heavymetalfox
#62
hello guys.
I had diificulty acheiving the water surface look ( i wanted to have similar mercury reflection, becose that what you see when you’r underwater ).
I tried dielectric, but it was weird, so turned to DGS (specular).
but i wanted it to have that look before adding the objects, and textures.
JeffPatton
#63
Thanks Zap! I started not to post it since it was a rather rushed image. Nice work on your examples and thanks for taking the time to explain the physics of it all.
ShadowM8
#66
Wow stunning work guys!
I decided to give this a try tonight before I head of for a weeks vacation. Didn’t get too far but kinda set out the look I would like to go for. Any comments and critique is highly appreciated.
Cheers!
jeremybirn
#67
@ jeffpaton - Amazing! That’s a great scene! I love the contrast and level of definition, it really gives you something to look at, with a strong figure/ground breakup that keeps your eye busy tracing the key contours. (I really don’t like the lower right hand corner, though. Anything else: going to silhouette (worth a try!), dappled light and texture, falling out of focus, even a white area if it really appeared to glow into the murk or be at the base of a beam of light, would seem better than ending such an amazing work of art on a weaker note.)
@ Dan Wade - Great! Like Creature From The Black Lagoon, really murky in a mysterious sense. I wonder if the places where bright light breaks into the water could be broken up more instead of all being in that elongated area beyond the boat?
@ Sherif.Nagib - Nice start! It sounds like you already have a lot to work on. Maybe you can make another copy of the grass so it doesn’t stop so suddenly on the right? One way to do the murk would be to render a separate pass just based on the distance from the camera to the nearest surface, such as to the ground or the water surface, then use that pass as a mask for the color shift or distortion that makes your water look.
@ kevb3d - Nice, the textures and the dappled look is starting to work!
@ arcus - Great start! Very sharp, but somehow looks like a clean tropic dive. The foreground is definately too blank though - can you do some texture, another copy of the plants, some irregular light beams or caustics?
@ neuromancer1978 - That’s coming out great! In the foreground, it looks like it could use a little environment map and maybe a little fill light. I’m looking at the dark side of the closest fish and also some of the plants, and in places where you’d expect the fish to be a bit reflective or the plants to be a bit translucent or otherwise for there to be some shading variation instead I see a flat uniform tone. In the background, the murk is looking really good. I wonder if the BG could fall a little out of focus, or if there could be some kind of slight distortion based on distance?
@ japetus - There is no deadline, and you can do any challenge at any time and post your work. The next challenge will come on-line right around SIGGRAPH, so this will be the top, most visited thread until then.
@ royterr - Nice! Especially the top one because it has a little variety to it. You might need to copy the grass out to cover more ground with that camera position.
@ lotaH - Models are available for download here: http://www.3drender.com/challenges/
-jeremy
jeremybirn
#68
@ ShadowM8 - Wow, you follow-up your modeling work with some great color and light! The water surface looks like it could use a little displacement or variation right where it hits the edges of the boat and dock. It looks very flat there, it’s a high-contrast edge, and the rest of the surface looks like it has some waves on it.
-jeremy
neuromancer1978
#69
Ah yes good call. Right now I am doing some DOF tests, and WOW! Since I really haven’t done too much in the way of totally completed scenes, or shots, I kind of sometimes forget that DOF can really bring your image out.
As for the shaders, yeah after looking it at, there isn’t too much in the way of variation in the grassy objects. As for the translucent fish, I had to laugh because I was watching the Finding Nemo DVD extras today and they mentioned the look of fish as being “gummy” so seeing you post the exact same idea struck me as funny - but very valid. Yes the fish look too “solid”.
Working on it. Thanks for the tips! 
BarberofCivil
#70
Some good work here so far. This one is tough as it’s hard to get quick test renders with the underwater effects.
My first official try at it:
jorust
#73
Lots of great entrys so far. I see that many of you go for a darker “muddy” look.
Being from Norway, not famous for it’s coral-reefs, I think I’m going to do this with a Norwegian mood.
Also moving this project over to XSI…
purpp
#74
hello guys.
This is my first attempt. Trying to fix the aliasing problem on the weeds. Will post the update later this week
Please comment
Thanks
BarberofCivil
#75
A couple more runs. Changed the colour of the murkiness and tried a different perspective.
Surrealix
#77
Some really nice images so far.
My first attempt at one of these challenges, spent about 4 hours on it so far, and could do with more. Done in blender, which I’ve had expreience at modelling in, but almost no lighting or texturing, so this was a huge learning curve. All the textures are procedural - this is one major thing I want to fix. Also I think it needs volumetric shadows, and some more visible particles in the water.
Underwater Sunrise - Blender / Yafray
JCBug
#78
Surrealix, I love the colors of your lighting.
It’s a real atmosphere. One of the best pictures !
T-bat
#79
First testing one from me. No caustics, bad materials, no textures:D
[[img]http://img139.imageshack.us/img139/5853/underwatersm3kb.jpg[/img]](http://imageshack.us)