Maya Underwater scene

                               
                       In this tutorial you will learn how to design an underwater scene using Autodesk Maya Environment fog(note that you can use this method in mental ray after creating the environment fog). You can design this using Realflow or Maya Fluid effects. But it gets much time to render. Using environment fog is very simple and very easy. This method is very usefull for underwater submarine animation.
                       Create a simple polygon submarine. Then move it little bit downward. Go to render settings window. Make sure the Render Using option is set to Maya Software. In Render Option tab click the flag in front of Environment Fog. It will automatically add environment fog effect in to your scene.

                          Go to attribute editor and check the Physical Fog.

                           Select Water as the Fog Type.

      Double click on the Water Color and enter following values.
                                  R- 0.000
                                  G- 0.194
                                  B- 0.303
      Double click on the Water Opacity and enter following values.
                                  R- 0.034
                                  G- 0.034
                                  B- 0.034
                           Set Water Density to 2.000

                            Above settings is for too dark scene. You can change Water Density and Water Opacity of your choice.
                            Create Directional Light and check Use Ray Trace Shadows in Shadows tab.

                            Create a simple ocean (Fluid Effects->Ocean-Create Ocean). Now go to Hypershade (Window->Rendering Editors->Hypershade). Then hold your middle mouse button and drag and drop oceanShader1 and directionalLight1 into Work Area. Click on the oceanShader1 using middle mouse button, hold it and drag and drop it on the directionalLight1. Then select shadowColor from the drop down menu.

                             Then go to Render Settings Window check the Raytracing in Raytracing Quality section. Uncheck the Enable Default Light in Common tab. Your final render will look like this.