Need some ideas

[Devin Johnston]

I'm going to be doing an interior animation that will have a large floor to ceiling aquarium in it. Naturally I want it to look amazing with fish swimming, bubbles, caustics the whole thing but I've never done anything like this before. So my question is what's the best way to approach this, are there any problems I should be looking out for, should I use any special materials or plugins to do this right?

[Dave Oliver]

have you thought about contracting pixar for the aquarium interior? i heard they did some kind of movie like that...

 

....3d aquarium screensaver projector map? really thats the best idea i had.....

Edited September 5, 2008 by dave5264

[CHE]

If you aiming for realism, live footage as an animated texture would be the best solution. However, it would only work if the aquarium sits in front of a solid wall.

 

http://www.fotosearch.com/DVA007/057-0051/

 

Otherwise, it sounds like a lot of work and rendering resources if you decide to animate everything from scratch. It might not even be worth it if the aquarium is only shown for a couple of seconds in the animation.

Edited September 5, 2008 by CHE

[shaneis]

What about rendering a 3-second loop for the aquatic plants, then animate one single fish and use it for instanced particles to make a school. A couple of larger fish on a short loop and a couple of emitters producing bubbles.

 

If you're not wanting to do any modelling for the fish, use sprites with mapped alpha cutouts instead of instanced particles. You could also use sprites for the bubbles.

[Devin Johnston]

Shane I like your idea about creating a school of fish using instanced particles, how would that work exactly?

[RobNJ73]

For what it's worth, here's my first thought on how I'd put Shane's idea into practice:

 

1) Create a PFlow source emitter, and have it emit one particle per school of fish you want to create. Make sure the start and stop frames are the same, and the first frame of the animation, so the particle always exists.

2) Have that one particle spawn (using a spawn test, just don't link the test to any other events) x number of offspring to populate the school, changing the variation and divergence values so the fish don't swim in a line.

3) Link a UDeflector to your tank geometry, and in PFlow use a collision test with that deflector (again, don't link this test to another event).

 

Tweak the movement/speed of the original particle to taste.

 

(sorry if this was insultingly overexplained... I tend to get a little wordy).

[Devin Johnston]

I like simple and I'm going to try this thanks!

[Tommy Burns]

Why not make some video footage at the local pet shop and put it in the diffuse slot of the material or buy the footage. Making it yourself is a huge job in itself

[Devin Johnston]

I can't do that because I'll be moving around the aquarium and I also want the caustics to interact with outside objects.

[Tommy Burns]

Looks like you have a tough job ahead of you so!!!!

Although it will be a nice challenge and the scene would probably be worth a few dollars when it's finished. Keep us all posted what you do it's and interesting one.

[shaneis]

Maxer, Robert seems to have it covered there. I can't give you Max-specific advice as I use Maya. However, the principles remain the same...

 

You can either create a few spawning particles the way Robert suggested, or you could create just one and composite that multiple times to give the illusion of more schools. The problem there would be noticeable looping patterns - OK if it's only on-screen for a short amount of time. If you're planning a longer shot of the aquarium, you'll need to make the instances longer. To create some randomness about it, you can use "fields" to disrupt the particles (divert them, accelerate/ decelerate, vortices etc). Also try to mix two or three different loops into the instances and have schools travel in different directions.

 

You could do your bubble and fish sims seperately, or for a more detailed (and complex/ difficult) sim, you could have the fish and bubbles interact but I'm thinking that an animated caustic/ ray marching effectwould "wow thecrowd" more than a fish avoiding bubbles or bubbles bouncing off fish.

 

Anything more complex than emitters and fields will take you into per-particle expressions...

 

NB: "Fields" may be to Maya what "deflectors" are to Max... I'm not sure.