make this creature look like in ocean

[dparcell87]

Hey guys this might be random question but how would you guys go about making the creature sculpt I am working on look like it is in the depths of the sea?  Open to all ideas. please be as detailed as possible. Thanks

[andy.engelkemier]

Some ideas: Don't treat this as instructions. But hopefully it'll give you some ideas.

in other software I'd tell you to use a backdrop, (same here with that part) and render with a fairly ambient light, plus one light projection of caustics from the top. It's not accurate, but no one would know unless you're animating it.

The overall light of an ocean, at a depth you'd likely find such a beast, would be a fairly diffused with nearly all of the light coming from above. So you could probably just use a gradient light, but put most of the light near the top.

Add some dust/similar particles, in front of everything to match the back plate (this step would be photoshop obviously), and try and adjust the lighting in keyshot to match the backplate that also.
Don't render With the backplate though. That's pretty much just for preview purposes.

One nice element would be a nice volume shadow underneath your creature. If it's a sunny day above you'll see that. If its a cloudy day you won't. Not sure how to accomplish that in keyshot though. BUT, if you're handy with modeling, then it's not too difficult to just model it. Model a shadow you say!?! Yeah. It will appear a bit like a volume. So just model what you're after, then render that piece out, mostly transparent, probably with a bunch of glossy refraction, to simulate what you're after. Photoshop is your friend here, with a little multiply on that layer below your object. This one can be pretty noisy because you'll most likely want to blur it a bit after the fact. If it's a nice sunny day you can probably get away with a directional blur to get rid of noise.

And for goodness sake, make yourself a specular map! Organic objects are rarely evenly reflective.

Hope that gives you some ideas.

[dparcell87]

Ok thank you for the advice, my sculpt isn't done yet still has a ways to go but yeah wanted to start planning on how I was going to render this as I have never tried making something look like its swimming around in the deep blue sea.

[justindustrial]

All the rules you need are here:

https://www.keyshot.com/forum/index.php/topic,6497.0.html

[andy.engelkemier]

not quite....
none of those scenes have shadow. As far as I know, keyshot can not do volume shadows.
The water in those scenes is too clear, so Not very ocean like. That's a great example for having the thing look like it's in a fresh aquarium if the thing is only in an 80 gallon tank. But by the looks of it, it's probably either a deap sea creature, or a Giant creature.