Particles

To make the water even more believable, I've decided to do plankton particles. To create a plankton effect I’ve created a nurbs plane and set it as an emitter. But the particles were going straight up and quite fast. To decrease their speed I've created a gravity field and set the magnitude value to -0.1. And to add some randomness in the movement I've added turbulence field and set the magnitude value to 50 and frequency value to 0.5.

Here is a play blast of the particles:

Underwater Dynamics 2

Another thing I wanted to create the effect of the underwater. To do it I've used paint effects. This creates a fog, ambient light and directional light. The directional light has a sequence attached to it, so it gives a similar effect to one I wanted to achieve with spot light. Here is a short clip of the underwater environment I've managed to achieve:

Underwater Dynamics 1

As my group don't have a visual effects artist, they've chosen me as this is my second role. I was asked to do some underwater dynamic tests. I've started by working on the spot light. I wanted to get the light rays similar to the underwater in real life. So I've created a spotlight and added fog to it. To make the fog look like rays I needed to add a texture to the light. To create a nice water-like texture I used AfterEffects. I've rendered four second sequence of this texture.

I wanted to apply this sequence to the light but for some reason Maya haven't allowed me to do so. So by now I've added only one frame of the sequence.

Animation Research

Also to be able to complete those tests I had to look at some jellyfishes and how do they move. Here are some links from Youtube I've been looking at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbpB5F9CcLc&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cq6UVGSr79k&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osuVKvYf7kU&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgqJpdJu03Q
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsAsuQoIwok&feature=watch_response

Animation Test

Once the rig is complete I started testing it. First I animated the hood:

Then I added two main tentacles. I tried to match their movement with the hood. The movement is slow because I wanted to get an effect of the size of the jellyfish.

Then I added the rest of tentacles and body. This took a lot of time as I wanted each tentacle to move differently. This is just a test animation, so it needs a lot of tweaking, but at least we know the it's working. Here is the whole jellyfish moving:

By doing these tests I was able to spot any mistakes in the rig. I discovered that the weights were wrong in some places so I could easily fix that.

Rigging

Once I've done the UVs I started rigging. Firstly I wanted to use dynamics to animate all of the tentacles. But then I've decided this wouldn't be that flexible to animate as it prevents posing the jellyfish. So I've created controls to each tentacle. The rig is made of spline IKs. I've attached clusters to the spline curves and constrained the controls to the clusters. To clean up the view for the animator I've hidden the joints and deformers. I've also put some colours to the controls so their not that confusing. This might be the longer approach but in the end it will allow much more interesting animation. Here is a screenshot of the finished rig:

And here is the jellyfish with only controls visible:

UVs

Before the rigging I wanted to lay down the UVs. This is because, if I lay down the UVs on the rigged model I would need to repaint weight and this is a lot of extra work. To lay the UVs I've used UVLayout. Here is UV snapshot of the jellyfish:

To check if the UVs are lay down correctly and don't overlap or stretch I've applied a simple checked texture. This clearly shows any irregularities in theUVs. Here is a simple animation of textured jellyfish:

Modelling

Finally, I could start modelling. I was asked to model the jellyfish and do some movement tests. To model The jellyfish I've used polygons. I've tried to keep the poly count as low as possible. I've managed to model whole jellyfish with 1996 polygons. Here is an animation of the model:

Concept Art

My main team role is a modeller/texturer. However, I've spent some time doing some concept art just to share my idea of colours and lighting.

Choosing the Final Jellyfish

Simone has also created some thumbnails. Taking all of the designs into account we've chosen the best bits and Simone has drawn the final jellyfish.

Jellyfish Thumbnails

Based on my research, I've drawn nine different jellyfishes. I wanted to have wide variety of designs to choose from.  I've numbered them and showed them to my group to choose and mix the best ones.

Jellyfish Research

Before doing concept art, I've done some research on jellyfish:

Choosing Ideas

Everyone from our group had to present their ideas in front of the class. Then the class voted for the best ones. Unfortunately my idea didn't get through. From the chosen ideas we could choose which group do we want to work for. I've chosen the idea of the city inside of huge jellyfish. Here is the story:

After a foreseen global catastrophe suddenly fast-tracked unexpectedly to the year 2120, Earth was left flooded up to 3000 meters above sea level. Nearly all land species have died out including the human race due to the extreme change of environmental conditions, thus leaving very small groups left alive. A large group created a set of facilities that would be able to withstand this change of environment, enabling them to find a new home. The sea life has thrived with all but a few of their predators left alive, allowing them to feed more than ever before and grow to enormous sizes. Drifting across the sea in their facilities, the recent human survivors of the water rise encountered a colossal jellyfish. The date is now 2170 – almost 50 years has passed since the cataclysm shook every corner of the world. Restoration of a now-endangered species has arisen an underwater metropolis housed by a goliath, floating organism discovered shortly after the cataclysm; civilisation now resides as an incubated race under water.

Destroyed Mushrooms

I've also added some sketches of destroyed mushrooms:

Character Design

I've also done some character design. Firstly, I wanted to make it fit to the environment. I was thinking what kind of features does it need to live there. The first thing I thought of was huge jaws, just to be able to eat the mushrooms. Another thing was to make it look intelligent. So I've added fingers to allow them to create and operate simple tools. The rest of the body is just my imagination. Here is a quick sketch of the character:

Mushroom Development

To prepare for the presentation, I've decided to sketch some mushrooms. But before any sketching I did a little research on mushrooms. I've decided to put different kind of mushroom on the planet.
Here are some images from my research:

Based on those images, I've made a sketch. But I wasn't happy with it. I've changed it a little bit adding some stairs, windows, doors and bridges to the mushrooms.

Here are those images:

Brainstroming

This is going to be a group project. But before we get into groups, everybody has to come up with some ideas of digital environment. We have to answer the questions about the time, mood, characters, function and story.
My initial idea was about giant mushrooms. But it needed further development. So I thought about the mood of the environment. The mushrooms will be on a different planet. The planet will be dark, because it's far away from the sun. But it won't be cold. It will be heated by lava. So there will be warm, dark colours and a lot of smoke. Then I thought about characters. They would be aliens who live in the mushrooms and eat them at the same time. They live in tribes, they don't have high technology. When they eat the mushrooms they live in, they have to move to a different place, where fresh mushrooms are. So the function of the environment will be place to live and source of food for the aliens. I also came up with the story for this environment. In my project I will show the environment after the battle. The battle was between two tribes who were fighting for fresh mushrooms.

Here is an image of my brainstorming with some drawings: