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By bruceberg - 6 Years Ago
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Hi Kids...I'm about to set up a scene where my grandkids rescue their father from certain drowning. I've searched high and low for any tutorials or tips on how best to do this, but have come up empty. So I'm going to wing it using lighting and focus for starters. If anyone has any tips or tutes, I would be very appreciative.
Regards...Bruce
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By Kelleytoons - 6 Years Ago
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This probably isn't any help at all, but I've yet to find really convincing underwater scenes done in iClone. What iClone is missing to make it right is either volumetric lights and/or light caustics.
In Max, for example, we'd just put a caustic video in the lights, but iClone had no ability to do this, and without it it's VERY difficult to get convincing underwater lighting (which can sell such a scene). The few things I've seen people render do their best with fog in an effort to emulate that "cloudy water" appearance, and that's helpful, but hardly convincing. Even iRay won't solve this problem, so that's most likely the best you can do.
If someone has better ideas I'd love to hear them, but the lack of caustics is a killer here.
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By sonic7 - 6 Years Ago
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Well this IS interesting - the idea of emulating water with lighting.(I have a *feeling* Mike's 'on the money' with his summation)
The (only) time I ever needed convincing water - I ended up turning to Eon'. I don't even know if they still do a 'freebie' version - but at the time, you could export out up to a certain resolution without the 'watermark' - and that was still 'usable'. Just a thought .... 
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By bruceberg - 6 Years Ago
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Hi Kids...I actually ended up changing the color of the sky to approximate the color of my ocean and then slightly blurring the camera. Then I put my characters in the sky and changed my camera to point at an angle upwards. I'm putting faith in the viewer to imagine being underwater, while I get my actors to the ocean surface as quickly as possible. I decided not to spend more than a day trying to do what apparently can't be done. (so unlike me...I must be maturing)
Regards...Bruce
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By sonic7 - 6 Years Ago
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That's great .... you've certainly surprised me .... and I'd be very keen to see the end result if you choose to air it ...
(I'm really glad you found a solution Bruce).
Steve.
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By Kelleytoons - 6 Years Ago
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If you do a web search for Underwater Caustics you'll see what I mean. Here's a tutorial on doing it in AE:
This really demonstrates why we need volumetric lighting in iClone (sigh).
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By gordryd - 6 Years Ago
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For what it's worth...I used the 3DScene > Mesh Medium > Canyon, moved the camera underwater, added some fog, plants, and rocks. The water animates nicely adding distortion to the above surface objects (and the plants 'sway' in the current), but it is missing caustics on the bottom. You could try animating a pattern in front of the light souce to fake caustics. - Gordon
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By Kelleytoons - 6 Years Ago
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I've tried putting something in front of the lights but it doesn't help with caustics, which are really needed for selling the effect. I used a plane and mapped it with caustics, I've tried displacements, everything you can think of short of something physical (IOW, some snake-like physical mesh that moved like caustics -- that might be the solution if I could figure out how to generate it).
Someday I may revisit this, but I hope volumetric lights show up in the meantime (which *might* be able to be mapped correctly to show caustics).
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By mark - 6 Years Ago
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I "faked" an underwater sequence awhile back in iC5 with this old Jungle Girl clip. Bubble particles definitely help along with moving light-shadows and don't forget fish!!!
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By sonic7 - 6 Years Ago
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Hey Mark! That's *really* well done!! The whole 'experience' - imagery plus sound - really 'takes you there' - loved it !!!
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By bruceberg - 6 Years Ago
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Hey Mark...That Jungle Girl scene was fantastic. I mulled using light shafts, but the sky in my scene is overcast, an intense storm just moving through the area in question, so I discarded that. And the scene takes place in the open ocean, so there is no seabed. No plants and such. So I opted for a fast and dirty scene. I'm hoping to have my movie done in about 3 weeks, and then I'll post a link. Be forewarned, though, it's going to come in just shy of 2 hours.
Regards...Bruce
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By mark - 6 Years Ago
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Thanks sonic!!!! WOW BruceB ! You're a much braver man than I...2 HOURS  !!! Can't wait to see it!
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By gordryd - 6 Years Ago
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You could add a blue/green LUT to the scene to give it that 'underwater' cast. Also, if you have PFX, they have a 'Water Wave' or something like that; if used at very low level could add that shimmery 'underwater' look...
Gordon
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By gordryd - 6 Years Ago
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Had to give it one more shot -- this time I used a 3D Sphere with a grass texture as a blend overlay and put the person inside. Used a few PFX: Bokeh (for small bubbles), Floating Dust, and Underwater Bubbles. Turned off gravity on hair, skirt, and kerchief and used wind to blow them up. Also added Blue Tint and Green Tint LUTs - Gordon
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By gordryd - 6 Years Ago
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I noticed after I posted the previous pic that it included the iClone Triple-Whammy of Hair, Particles, and DOF all overlapping, hence there is a blurry "square" above the characters head. I'll try to fix it tonight...
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By justaviking - 6 Years Ago
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About Caustics - There is a "caustics" Substance that could be applied to help with an underwater scene. Thanks to *cough*someone*cough* who requested iClone support the $TIME variable for Substances, it will "animate" when you play your scene. I'm not sure how it would work (or not) as a filter over a light source, but you could apply it to the bottom of the lake and stuff like that. Feel free to ask more questions if you're curious.
@Mark - I remember seeing that video before. In addition to showcasing water, it proves again that a well-done scene can survive the test of time. It wasn't make in iClone 7.2, but it still looks great and is easy to watch.
@Gordon - That's a great-looking image. When I see it, I immediately know it's an underwater scene. Very well done.
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By illusionLAB - 6 Years Ago
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Underwater, like many lighting scenarios, is best emulated by working over a 'real life' reference. Light source is always only from above... and very soft, so a GI plane emitter is a good place to start. In the image I created I've also added a spotlight to create the 'caustics' - you can't see it (2-sided off), but there's a plane with a noise map in the opacity channel which only allows light through the cracks. Animating a slight move in the "caustics gobo plane" makes for quite a convincing effect. The rest of the lighting on the dude is using a 'blue fog' - no IBL it will kill the look. Obviously, the deeper you go the less power the caustics have.
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By Kelleytoons - 6 Years Ago
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I have tried repeatedly to create caustics in just the manner you are describing (with no success at all). I don't suppose you'd share that file (just the cutdown one with the caustics)? I would LOVE to get that working.
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By illusionLAB - 6 Years Ago
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Sure... do you want a project file or just the texture for the caustics?
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By Kelleytoons - 6 Years Ago
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The project file would be great, because I have used my own caustic textures (which are fine) and can't get anything to work in iClone (the best I can get doesn't even begin to approach what I could do in Max or Maya). I'd just love to see how you're doing it with the proper lighting (obviously me trying with my own plane and caustics I'm missing something).
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By toystorylab - 6 Years Ago
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After seeing this thread i decided to try it myself cause i never did an "underwater" before 
Used the Popcorn FX God Rays to try to simulate sun from above...
Lots of Popcorn FX (Bubbles, Clouds, Fog, ...) and in post a pinch of "Hitfilm Fluid Distortion"...
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By justaviking - 6 Years Ago
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@TSL - That was very cool. I thought the underwater effects were very fine.
Here is a different implementation of caustics, used on a "spirit lady" proof-of-concept...
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By gordryd - 6 Years Ago
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IllusionLAB - I've tried several different ways to use spotlight shining through opacity object but I am not getting the impressive results I see in your post. Would you be willing to give us a general overview of the steps you took to achieve this effect (the caustic shadows and the light rays)? I just noticed the Shadow Catcher as one of your props -- maybe that is the key? Thanks,
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By Kelleytoons - 6 Years Ago
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It's not the shadow catcher -- you can get rid of that.
I won't speak for IllusionLAB but the sample he sent me seems to indicate that you need a VERY fine "mesh" to get the reflections to show properly from the spotlight. What he did was create a plane and put this very fine opacity map on it that the spotlight shone through (and used an emmissive GI surface to get the "blue light" but, again, this isn't the important part -- the important part is that very detailed mesh).
I've actually tried this myself and, even using his project, I can't get the same underwater results I would need using more sophisticated caustics (he uses a very simple noise pattern and "animates" it just by rotating. I want actual caustics and while I have a pattern for them I can't get it to look right. Yet. I'm still hopeful).
In case anyone else wants to try, what I'm using is this: https://www.dualheights.se/caustics/
There's a freeware version there that is more than adequate for testing -- and if I could ever get this to work I'd pay for the more advanced version, but I can't yet. Yet.
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By 4u2ges - 6 Years Ago
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Here is fairly quick and dirty. Bottom caustics only. Quality of the caustics video is lousy (ripped first available from YouTube). Hi-res videos from Mike's link would probably do better.
Basically I have a plain up high with the video in opacity channel (had to play with that video in HitFilm, inverting it, desaturating,.. etc). And a spot light above it:
I like the idea of illusionLAB. Could be fun to play with opacity channel. Here is static one, but rotated:
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By Darren01 - 6 Years Ago
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we have some very talented animators here that can think right outside the box to overcome some of iClone's limitations
nice work on those underwater scenes
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