Underwater light rays

[q4peter]

This may be a silly Q, however, does anyone know how to create realistic light rays underwater. Specifically, moving surface water, camera underwater and having realistic light rays coming down and affecting objects and characters accordingly. I've seen one of the guys from alias and his underwater jellyfish animation, but never knew how he created those light rays. I can, of course, do this very easily in a compositing package like AFX, but it's not very realistic. Any help would be greatly appreciated, Thanx in advance!!

virtual-visions@mindspring.com

[claforte]

Try using environmental fog. (Look for it in the online help) Also take a look in the highend3d shaders section, I think there's one example that might help you.

Christian Laforte

Software Engineer,
Alias|Wavefront

[naris]

I have had good luck this way:

1. make a spotlight, turn on light fog.

2. make a fractal texture, bumped up 4X larger and soften in texture attribute editor.

3. apply same texture to both light source and light fog.

4. re open the texture's attribute editor. click the tab for texture placement, keyframe a VERY slight oscillation in texture position.

5. tweak parameters until you're satisfied.

takes a while, but it sure does look good!

-P. P.