Blender Tutorial - Creating a Stormy Ocean

hello everyone and welcome to another blender made easy tutorial today we'll be creating a stormy ocean animation we'll be covering a lot of topics like the ocean modifier particle systems how to create that look when you go underneath the ocean and a couple of nice materials so let's go ahead and get started by deleting the default cube and then pressing shift a and let's add in any mesh in this case let's add in a monkey head then we're going to jump over to the modifier tab and then add in the ocean modifier there we go we can see the ocean modifier is in our scene and make sure you have the geometry set to generate rather than displace displacement will try to displace your original mesh and then generate will generate a new mesh right now our ocean doesn't look that great so we're going to change a couple of settings over here first off i'm going to set the size a little bit lower let's go with 0.7 we're going to be adding in multiple oceans with different resolutions to save on memory so that's why we're going to set the size a little bit lower next we're going to set the resolution of the render to 32 if you have a slower computer you can probably use around 24 and that will still look pretty good as for the time value you can see if i drag this up the ocean is actually going to be moving around so what we're gonna do is set a driver for this value so it changes over time to do this select the value and type in hashtag and then frame divided by let's go with 35 now what happens is if we play it it's going to play the animation the number of 35 controls the speed if you want it to be slower you can bring it up if you want it to be faster set it down to like 25 or 15 somewhere around there next up let's change the height of the waves right now they look a little bit flat so let's open up the waves panel and set the scale up to a value of about 2.1 or so we'll see what that looks like and you can see we have much higher waves the smallest wave right here controls the smallest wave in the scene so if you drag this up you're gonna lose a lot of detail so make sure this value is set really low as for the choppiness this is how sharp the waves are going to be it's going to pinch the waves at the very top so if i drag this up you can see they're coming closer together let's set this to 1.6 and the other thing that we're going to do is enable foam so check that box and then open up this panel we're going to set the data layer name this is what we're going to use in the material later let's set this just to foam and as for the coverage currently it's set to zero but this is still gonna have a lot of foam in the ocean you can see on screen the difference is with negative point two zero and like point five and you can see what they look like so we're just gonna leave that value at zero next what we're going to do is go into top view at the moment we have a very small ocean and if we go into the camera view you will be able to see the end of the ocean which is not what we want so let's duplicate this ocean and place it on multiple sides the reason we're duplicating it rather than just scaling it up is because we want a lot of geometry right here next to the camera but we don't need that anywhere else over here in the back we don't need a value of 32 for the render that's just going to slow down the render so instead let's press shift d and if you press the x key and type in 35 in the negative direction it's going to place it in the exact spot that we need as you can see there so it's right on that seam next we can set the render amount to 15 and then we'll set the repeat y to one and unfortunately we can't select the repeat x because it's going to have one right here as well so instead we're just going to duplicate this one so go ahead and select it press shift d y and type in at 35 once again and then enter we're going to set the resolution to 15 and there we go now they are lined up perfectly but this one is going to have a lot higher resolution than any of the other ones next up let's set up the camera we're going to have the camera next to the ocean and have it move up and down as the ocean is moving around we can do this very easily by holding the shift key and placing our cursor right at that location then we'll press shift a and add in a plain object go into edit mode and right click and subdivide this plane let's do it twice so we have a couple of faces right here next what we're going to do is go over to the modifier tab and give it a shrink wrap modifier for the target we're going to select the ocean now you can see if we play the the plane is actually moving up and down the other important thing that we need to do is create a vertex group for this plane this is going to come in later we're going to go over to the object data panel create a new vertex group we'll go into edit mode and then assign all of those vertices to that group so click assign right there next let's select the camera we'll go into top view by hitting 7 and then place the camera right about here let's actually move this plane a little bit closer something like that and what we're going to do is copy the location of this plane and assign it to the camera so with the camera selected we're going to go over to the constraints tab add in a new constraint and it's going to be a copy location constraint as for the target it's going to be the plane object we can see our camera has moved down there and the other thing that we need to do is assign the vertex group because at the moment it's actually using the origin point of the plane rather than the plane itself you can see the camera's not moving so if we assign the vertex group that we just created the camera will move with the plane make sure you turn on offset so you can actually move the camera around to wherever you want and then just place it right above something like that scale it or bring it down a little bit we'll go into the camera view to see what it looks like you can double tap r rotate it around so we're actually viewing the ocean at this angle and then also in the camera settings we're going to set the focal length down to 24 so we have a wider view but the other thing that you might notice is our camera looks very boring there's no rotation in the movement so let's go ahead and fix that on frame one we're gonna hit i and add in a rotation keyframe then we're gonna come over to the top and split this view and switch it over to the graph editor right here we're gonna add in some random noise to the rotation of all of the different axes so open up this panel and select the x rotation to do this press the n key and if we go over to the modifier tab we can add in a noise modifier right here now what's going to happen is the rotation is going to move like this and this is way too much so let's press the period key to zoom in on our graph and we can see what our noise looks like right here the scale of this we're going to go up to 25 and then for the strength we're going to go down to 0.2 now the rotation is going to be more subtle and it's going to look a lot better to actually apply this same noise to the rest of the different axes we can copy that modifier by selecting that button going over to the y rotation and then pasting it in right here the other thing that you need to do is change the offset because currently it's using the exact same noise pattern which looks a little bit weird so let's set the offset up to 500 so it's using a different noise pattern we'll select the z rotation as well and paste it in and then set the offset to let's go with 1000 if we play our animation here is what it looks like i think the z rotation is a bit too much so let's set the scale of that to 35 instead of 25. let's go ahead and close that off now and we're also going to add in a model over here a bowie model so it's floating around and this will give us a focal point in the ocean so what i'll do is i'll select the plane i'll shift d it and move it over here somewhere then what we can do is go over to file down to append and if you want to use the same model i'm using the link is in the description it's just a basic model with some different textures and materials and it looks pretty nice once you have found the model go ahead and selected the blend file and go over to collection select the bui collection and append it into your scene this model has a little bit of animation data if we play it you can see it's rotating around what i'll do is i'll select the empty and we're going to do the exact same thing that we did with the plane so over into the constraints tab we're going to add in a new constraint a copy location constraint as for the target it's going to be the plain object and then for the vertex group of course select that group right there and you can see this is what it looks like the buoy is moving up and down and floating on the ocean one important thing that you need to do with the shrink wrap on both the buoy and the camera object is you need to change the wrap method with it set to nearest point surface what it's going to do is it's going to stretch out those points along the surface this creates a really weird effect with the buoy as you can see there it's kind of glitching around so what we need to do instead of using the nearest point is we need to project it onto the surface this is going to make sure it's nice and smooth as you can see there make sure you do that for both the shrink wrap for the buoy and the camera so select the plane for the camera and set that over to project rather than the nearest surface and that'll make sure both the camera movement and the buoy movement is nice and smooth the next thing that we'll do is create the ocean that's underneath this is going to be a very large cube with a volume material so what we need to do is first place our cursor like right in the center of the ocean then we're going to add in a plane object we're going to go into top view and scale this plane up so it fits the ocean something like this but you don't want to go past the edges so right about there looks pretty good then we'll go into edit mode right click and subdivide this if we open up this panel we can set the number of cuts to 50. then i'm going to press e to extrude and extrude it all the way down here we're going to select the top half of this big cube and then go over to the vertex group panel we're going to create a new vertex group and assign all of those top vertices to that group what we're going to be doing is shrink wrapping the top to the ocean so it doesn't penetrate like this and the other thing that we need to add is another ocean object to actually fill the entire thing so with this ocean selected we're going to press shift d we're going to name this object volume shrink wrap just like that and then over in the modifier tab we're going to set the resolution of both the render and the viewport let's go with a value of 5 so it's really low poly then we're going to repeat it along the x and then finally make sure that is turned off in both the view and in the render then select your cube right here we're going to add in a new modifier and this is going to be a shrink wrap modifier for the target it's going to be the volume object so select the volume shrink wrap and then what we need to do is for the brotex group because currently it's shrink wrapping everything onto this mesh we're going to select that group right there and finally before we create the materials we're going to add in a particle system for the rain so add in a new plane scale this plane up so it's about the size of the ocean and drag it upwards go into camera view and make sure that you can't really see it in the camera so there we go that looks pretty good then we're going to add in a particle object this is going to be an ico sphere so select the icosphere then move it over to the right side if we zoom in on this by hitting the period key we're going to select that top vertex and move it up using proportional editing to create the look of a raindrop so press o to turn on proportional editing i'll press g and z and then we'll drag it up somewhere around there looks pretty good that looks like a raindrop then we'll right click and shade it smooth go back over to your plane and then over in the particle system we will create a new one then we're going to scroll down to the render settings set it from render as halo to render as object and then for the instant object select the icosphere that we just created if we play our animation you can see the particles don't reach the ocean floor right here they actually stop right at this point that's because the lifetime is set to 50. let's set this up to 100 and as for the start and end frame we're going to set the start frame to a negative value this will make it look like the rain has already started before we actually render the first frame so with this we're going to set it to negative 60. as for the end frame we're going to go up to 400 because i want the animation to last for 400 frames and then the in the timeline we're also going to set the time to 400. now if we restart and play it you can see the particles are already emitted at frame one and that's what we want the other important thing that we're going to change is the velocity if we come over here and zoom in you're gonna notice the particles move up just slightly and then fall down that's because the normal is set to one let's set that to zero and set the z direction to negative one now what happens instead of going up they're gonna fall straight down that looks pretty good and as for the size down here you may need to play around with it maybe give it a little bit of random size the other thing that we're going to do is select the volume shrink wrap right here we can turn it back on in the viewport and then go over to the physics tab we're going to enable collision and then turn on kill particles so any particles that touch this object are going to die and this will make sure no particles actually enter the ocean but rather stop right on the surface so with that done we'll go back over to the particle system we'll turn off show emitter so the plane does not show up in the render then we're going to bake this in so open up the cache and then click on fake alright all of the objects are in our scene so now let's set up the lighting and materials we don't need the default lamp in our scene so let's go ahead and delete it and then we're going to switch the render engine over to cycles cycles just looks a little bit better for this animation so we're going to be using cycles if we press z and go into rendered view we're also going to come over here to the color management set the look to high contrast this will give us a much better look and then finally we're going to go over to the world settings if we split this view right here we can switch it over to the shader editor then we can switch it over to the world nodes by selecting the world up there if you want to you can use an hdr for the background but the problem with that is depending on which hdr you use you're going to get some ground over here and that's going to reflect on the actual volume object right here so instead we're going to use a noise texture and this is going to give us some fake clouds so what i'll do is i'll press shift a add in a texture and a noise texture right here and then to change the color of this we're going to add in a converter color ramp we're going to take the factor plug it into the factor and then the color into the color of the background as for the scale of this we're gonna go with a value of three the detail we're going to drag all the way up to 15 and then the roughness will go 2.6 and you can see here we have some fake clouds and as for the color we're going to set the color of this to a nice dark blue color somewhere around there and then this color right here we're gonna go with a lighter blue and then just darken it up a little bit the strength of this will set up to three and then we might have to change the color again so something like that will look pretty good and as you can see that does look like dark stormy clouds as for the rest of the materials we're going to select our raindrop switch this over to object and then give it a new material we're going to set the transmission up to 1 and then the ior we're going to set to 1.333 because that is the ior of water and then as for the base color we're going to give it a slightly blue color next up let's work on the volume object have it selected and give it a new material for this material we're going to not use the principled shader we're going to actually use the principle the volume shader so go ahead and add that in if we take the volume plug it into the material output you might notice everything disappears and the reason for that is because the normals are messed up so make sure you go into edit mode select everything and press shift n to recalculate the normals and now the volume should work properly for the density we're going to set this much lower let's go with a value of 0.05 we'll see what that looks like not too bad and then for the anastrophe we're going to drive this up to a value of 0.5 as well this is going to give us some nice look in the volume when the camera actually enters it and then as for the color we're going to set it to a nice blue color somewhere around here as for the ocean material go ahead and selected the high poly ocean right here we're going to give it a new material and the first thing that we'll do is set the transmission all the way up to one the roughness down to zero and then for the base color we're going to use a hex code this is the hexagon that we're going to be using it's 18272f it's just a nice dark green bluish color something like that and then the ior we're also going to set to 1.333 now let's add in the foam to the ocean if we press shift a we need to add in an attribute node and then we're going to use that same data layer name over here the foam the phone name we're going to control c to copy that and then paste it right here for the name in the attribute node then to actually add this in we're going to add in a shader a mix shader we'll place it here and then we'll also add in the principal shader take the bsdf plug it into the bottom input then we're going to take the factor and plug that into the factor of the mix shader and there we go we can already see some foam being applied to our ocean the look looks really low poly so let's set the resolution to 24 for the viewport just so we can actually see some detail and there we go that looks pretty good if we want to control this a bit more we can add in a math node we'll place it right here and set it over to multiply this bottom value now controls the strength of that foam so let's set this to 1.5 just so it's a little bit brighter then if we want to clamp down on that phone we can add in a color ramp node and drag the black value closer something like that and that's going to clamp down on the amount of foam that's in the scene that looks pretty good just like that and then over here in the principled shader we're not going to use the transmission value because if we drag that up and set the roughness lower it's going to be a little hard to see the foam so instead we're just going to be using the regular shader but maybe bring the roughness down to like 0.1 or so that looks pretty good go ahead and apply that material to the other ocean so with this one selected we'll give it that ocean material let's actually name this material ocean so here we'll call it ocean then we'll select the small ocean right there we'll give it that ocean material we'll select this one in the back and also give it that ocean material i'm gonna set the render amount back down to seven so everything moves very quickly and there we go all of the materials are done and now the last step is to set up the location keyframes of our camera so the camera actually enters the ocean at a certain point in the timeline so what we're going to do is skip to about frame 110 right about here and then we're gonna add in a location keyframe so hit i and add in a location keyframe over a certain amount of frames let's go over to 160 right here we're gonna go into the ocean so press g and z drag it into the ocean right about here and then add in another location keyframe we'll see the speed of that and that looks pretty cool if we press z and go into rendered view we can see what the underside of our ocean looks like and that is looking really nice we're going to leave the camera inside the ocean for just a little bit and probably around frame to 240 we're going to add in another location keyframe skip to 50 frames later so 290 and then drag this up so it's now above the ocean and then add in another location keyframe so now let's preview that entire thing let's play our animation from the start it goes into the ocean at 110 hangs out here for a little bit and then goes back up at 240. make sure you also select the plane objects and hide them from both the view and the render so they don't show up we'll select the one underneath the camera as well the view and the render at this point we can go over to the runner settings turn on motion blur we're also going to set the max samples for the render down to 50 and there we go we've now created the ocean and all we have to do is render it out i recommend rendering out one frame and seeing how it looks and if you want to change the lighting or materials you can go ahead and do that you can also add in some glare in the compositor but that is all up to you you can add more to this tutorial as well i know cg boost just uploaded a very good lighting tutorial which could be applied to this ocean very easily so go ahead and check that out i'll link it in the description but if you made it all the way to the end of this video let me know in the comments down below and if you created something cool i would love to see it so make sure to send it to me on instagram at blendermadeeasy i know i haven't uploaded in about two months now but i am back and i have a lot of tutorials planned and i'm gonna be uploading much more frequently from now on but again thank you very much for watching and i hope you guys have a good weekend and i will see you in the next one

Channel: Blender Made Easy

Views: 1,206,890

Keywords: blender, tutorial, ocean, modifier, blendermadeeasy, blender made easy, fluid, particles, rain, foam, ocean modifier, storm, cycles, eevee, how to, blender tutorial, 3.0, 3.1, animation, beginner, model, volume, nodes, materials

Id: oysCSbhXYBo

Length: 21min 51sec (1311 seconds)

Published: Fri May 13 2022