Marine Life and Death

Whale Fall

The death of a being as intelligent as a whale is tragic, but the benefits it provides to the ecosystems of the deep is something that marine biologists marvel at on the rare occasions whale fall is discovered. The brief of this project was to create four images that represent mortality. The compositions were to contain no manmade objects and therefore the lighting within this scene needed to represent the light absorption of water.

The model of the whale was generated by creating a base mesh in Maya and then sculpting it in zBrush. It was then textured using the zBrush polypaint and further enhanced with aiStandardSurface. Using aiAtmosphereVolume to create the underwater mist and light absorption of the water and nParticles with transparency maps on aiStandardSurface to form the sea particles which add to the realism of the scene.

Henodus

I was tasked with researching and creating a 3D model of the prehistoric marine creature, Henodus. The model was sculpted in zbrush.