Whale shark - with caustics (Blender animation)

This is a whale shark underwater, with light rays and caustic patterns. Whale sharks can be huge: up to 12 metres! It is an update from my previous one (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Hsp08l1yC0).

This animation was completely done in Blender, the great open source software package.

My site, http://www.dnapixels.com, contains a tutorial on how this was done.

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• Whale
• shark
• caustics
• Blender
• 3D
• animation
• volumetric
• light

[Runningidiot]

great stuff

only suggestions would be its to shiney and with the momentum of its tail it would be moving faster

[allanliddle]

Hi Runningidiot,

You may be correct regarding the speed of movement, but you must remember that these things are HUGE - nearly as big as a whale: +-10 metres! So, speed is relative - and it has a huge bulk and weight to propel. I feel comfortable with my representation, except that I could have added "dust" near his tail as it sweeps past the ocean bed. But I did not have time when I did it...

[kittiesization]

I made a cube spin.

[BloodyAces4]

i thought it was real :O

[missmajor5]

how did you do the reflecting light on the ocean floor? Like how did you make that move?

[timofly]

Very cool shark! Love the details

watch?v=K0rk2y1QtRk&feature=re­lated

[AnyMation]

@TheDuckCow: See the comments with the video - it gives you the details of a tutorial

[TheDuckCow]

How do you get the caustics? The only way I've ever manages is a volumetric spot lamp with rotating flattened cubes in front with random holes here and there, which is quite annoying and not very realistic for getting any sort of patterns…

[dwikie123]

bagus



[AnyMation]

@blenderguy2008:

Thanks. For the tutorial: see the link in the text description below the video

Cheers

[blenderguy2008]

WOW ! This is great. I think I commented on this a year ago, but it is still one of the best underwater scene I have seen made in Blender. Any Tutorial? Tricks and tips?

[frankbraker]

@luci66 youtube is home of a huge amount of Blender tuts although many are pre-2.5 - but don't let anything stop you!

[luci66]

Awesome work man! I would really love to learn Blender as I can't afford 3DS Max, Rhino, Maya, Cinema 4D... I would love to model boats and ships... i wish there were systematic tutorials available for the absolute beginner!