Underwater animation for high profile Indiegogo project + Credits

My name is Todd Janca and we have a group gearing up to launch a high profile Indiegogo project and need some animations for the project.

Our group is comprised of volunteer scientists and engineers who are working on a renewable ocean energy system to replace Fossil Fuels and Nuclear Energy.

I was hoping we could start an animation contest for our project and the winners animation would be used on our Indiegogo campaign, its for a really good cause and we could offer the winner some real exposure.

We would give the animator credit for the animation on the Indiegogo page and project video and several hundred thousand people would see it.

We have been able to get endorsements from a number of recognized actors - Mark Ruffalo (hulk) , Lielani Munter (cove), Mathew Modine (full metal jacket) etc… so it could be a real chance to get noticed and once our Indiegogo campaign is over hopefully we would have the money to pay this person to do additional animations.

We have a 3D model in Blender but none of us are proficient enough to set it , light it, and animate it as it is an underwater scene.

The goal is to see a group of these 100’ wide turbines spaced about 300’ apart on a flat sandy seafloor with sea water flowing at 6’ per second in about 200’ ocean depth. The leading edge of the turbine moves at the same speed of the water. We need people to be able to see the scale of the turbines and how they work.

This is the best I could do with what I was able to teach myself of Blender :https://vimeo.com/80322808

The blender file is here :ftp://ftp.crowdenergy.org/3D-MODEL/

Please take a look at our project and see what ideas you may have. : http://crowdenergy.org/

Please let me know what you think.

Thank you!
Todd Janca
[email protected]

That looks interesting. So what are the dimensions of the turbine and how far apart are they from each other. Also, how many is needed?

Turbines are 100’ wide , spaced about 300’ apart on a flat sandy seafloor with sea water flowing at 6’ per second in about 200’ ocean depth. The leading edge of the turbine moves at the same speed of the water.

Ideally it would be a group of 10 turbines turning the same direction ( as they are directional ) fading off into the distance underwater.

This could easily turn into a full time job for some talented person once we get funded.

Thanks!

Cool examples :


Also - these need to be photorealistic animations / renderings


Alright, so I made my very first crack at trying to make it a bit more realistic. When I first opened the file, it was lagging a bit for my PC. So after a few modifications, this is the result. It’s a work in progress and I am working a bit more on the volume lighting on the area. Does it matter if the area has any extra items for aesthetics like seaweed or do you just want the turbines to be shown? Also just to be clear, this is 300 ft you are talking about right?

Hello, the turbines from the center to the edge of one of the three arrays of blades is 100 feet.
The turbines need 300’ of clear space between any other turbine so figure 500’ center to center between two turbines.

These turbines are so big I think seaweed would be too small to see - just turbines would be great

Thanks…

Got it. I’ll keep working when I can. I got a lot of things going on starting next week.

This looks like something I’d like to try. Is there more time/room for me to try? I could really use some exposure.

It’s not limited I don’t think. If you want to take a shot at it be my guess. It’s not a first one first served issue.

Ok then I’ll give it a shot.

Alright, I had to learn a couple of things about the blender file that you have provided. I ironically found the tutorial you based the creation of the file on. I added the nodes to the file and according the info you provided, it’s 200 ocean depths beneath the ocean’s surface. The color of the water seems to be correct. I just need to try and get some more light since the is s chance that the sun’s rays may be able to slight reach that far. I’m currently working on this scene as you are reading this message and will post an image sometime tomorrow.

Due to some unknown error, I won’t be able to post the image I promised today. I will try again tomorrow.


Alright, so apparently the PNG Images that I had couldn’t be used to upload here. So I had to re-render it. In any case, here is the latest image for the project. Before I decide to make multiple copies of this mesh, I need to get the lighting down correctly. Rest assured, I will continue to work on it.

Alright after a couple of days of trying to modifying the existing file available, I couldn’t go any further with that file, tutorial and all. So I recreated one from scratch after finding an existing file of course. Since you wanted a image similar to the examples provided, this is about as close I can get to it.




I still need to adjust it a bit more based on the depth that you provided. Let me know if it is to your liking.

Ok, it looks like this is about as close as I can get to real life settings with the skill that I have.

Add mist and caustics and give that ocean floor a slight displacement from clouds-type texture?

Well, the scene is suppose to be at least 200 meters below the surface. I can add the mist to the environ, but the caustics will be a whole different story since the light will barely be noticeable that far down.

Moderation: Please do not use this thread to submit work or show work in progress. Please do that via PM, email, or a separate thread in another sub-forum. The Jobs forums are for offering work; not for discussing or showing the project’s progress.

OK, but I was suppose to get a response from them here. So far, no reply.