2023 Collab: Week 17 “Coral reef” - VOTE CLOSED

[FedPete]

This is the Blender Collaboration 2023, week 17 challenge. Don’t be afraid to join, a lot of us are beginners. This is all to practice, have fun, learn, and get together.

This week’s subject is “Coral reef”.

• Coral reef - ‘Corals and their inhabitants, explorers, hobbyists and all that.’ - A coral reef is an underwater ecosystem characterized by reef-building corals. Reefs are formed of colonies of coral polyps held together by calcium carbonate. Most coral reefs are built from stony corals, whose polyps cluster in groups.
• Subject selected by the previous Week 15 “Wings” winner Kzanna

The rules are simple. 1 subject, 1 entry, 1 week.
You create whatever object or scene or whatever you can think of that has something to do with the subject. It can be as simple or complicated as you want, all entries are welcome!
Post your picture here in this thread. And at the end of the week, we start to vote. And if you are the winner, you may choose the next subject and win a unique badge.

Deadline: 2023-04-29T21:55:00Z

• Last week’s collab: Blender Collab: Week 16“ Low poly nature ”
• Next week: Games week 18.
• See all previous challenges in Hall of Fame 2023
• Halls of fame 2022, 2021, 2020

If you want to stay informed of the @ BlenderCollab ?
Subscribe or unsubscribe to this “BlenderCollab” group.

[ShadowFireSage]

not participating just posting this themed render I did using some coral reef models on blendswap. Animation is easeing in and out when it shouldn’t and I see quite a few other things that I could improve, makes me wanna go back and remaster.

[VVruba]

makes me wanna go back and remaster

Perfect time to do it, no?

[ShadowFireSage]

true, maybe I will if I have extra time this week

[consummatumest]

how do you upload this video directly to the thread? I am tired of uploading to youtube first

[FedPete]

You can not!

Must use YouTube or Vimeo or else.

[consummatumest]

it seemed @ShadowFireSage found a way to do it and I was eager to bypass youtube

[VVruba]

He uploaded a short GIF file, not a video.

[consummatumest]

makes sense

[consummatumest]

I’ve made the first sequence months ago and wanted to include in this scene as well.

Animation:

Coral reef visit by a yellow submarine

[Kzanna]

It turns out that corals are such a complex thing … and very time-consuming. Unfortunately, rl requires attention, so I’ll have to settle for what I have.

[VVruba]

Yeah, you picked a hard nut to crack lol. Underwater is already difficult enough but the amount of variety and detail needed for a coral reef makes it a real struggle. I’ve been racking my brain for the past week with how I’m gonna do this. I think I may finally be onto something though.
Well done on your piece, clownfish are classic and I can see an old friend in there.

[Medial]

Ok, lets give that a go:

This was much more work than anticipated
Also - this is awesome idea for ‘Hidden danger’ subject. Good that I didn’t get that idea it back than, cause I didn’t have time at all that week

[Kzanna]

@ShadowFireSage inspirational picture, thanks.

@consummatumest Great underwater environment! And a very cute YELLOW submarine. The only thing missing is a small fish running away from the guest.

@VVruba Thank you. I definitely didn’t think about how I would do it when choosing a topic. I just wanted to make a coral reef)))

@Medial Is that a merperson? Oh, and the broken mast. It looks like there’s a deep ravine that we can’t see behind the corals. There is a sense of history here.

[FedPete]

Reviving an old project. All Eevee render.

[VVruba]

Gah, it’s unfinished but for whatever reason I though I’d have the whole weekend to do it and not just saturday so this is all I could do in a day. I really wanted to add more to this, more fish and coral variety, caustics, I originally planned to have a shipwreck rusting away in there too. Alas it was not to be.
This was a tough one, but I learned a lot doing this. Turns out underwater setting is not an easy task and complexity of fine detail coral has is a big challange to replicate.

Progress Gif

Blender Viewport

[Medial]

Yeah, there is a mermaid hidden in plain sight.

I usually try to tell a story with an image. Narration should go hand in hand with composition, and its quite important for me. Often I fail with this task, but still, trying my best to hide a little story here and there.
Im happy I did succeed with this one. We know why the ship crashed on that reef (it is mermaid == siren approach), there is also additional roaming danger for the sailors that did survive the impact and demise of the ship.

[visionary5]

I used this week’s prompt to help me learn about geometry nodes. Dang, it’s rough! Also, I have no idea where the bright light is coming from in the top part of sand. I found a YouTuber, Khamurai, who has geo puzzles. They really helped me think through the process. I need more. Anyone know where I can find creative ways to learn nodes?

[FedPete]

We @BlenderCollab have a few days to vote. You can vote fast but also think slowly about design, colors, technique, difficulty, subject, realism, etc. Choose consciously and not on your own entry.

And the new subject week 18 “Games” has already started. The winner of this week’s “Coral reef” challenge may select a subject for next week 19 and wins a badge.

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Coral reef

• consummatumest
  

  

• Kzanna
  

  

• Medial
  

  

• FedPete
  

  

• Geth270
  

  

• visionary5