This is my first ever rendered film in After Effects, including a city background for the Underwater part of my film. The environment in question is obviously far from complete, but I wanted to test some underwater effects in Adobe Affects and see how effective they could be. I looked up an online tutorial that teaches you how to create light-rays and bubbles rising through the water, however due to my lack of knowledge of After Effects I believe I have struggled to achieve anything I am satisfied with.
The background in question may be altered to a mountain landscape, including caves and introducing a more "rocky terrain," which would reflect the apocalyptic city scene perched on top of sheer cliffs. I may include some ruins into the underwater mountains but I want to avoid a cliched, "lost, forbidden temple," feel to environments. I do believe those themes are done to death.
Instead, I would opt for more industrial, early 20th Century architecture to my buildings or combine modern industrial elements with old, ancient in ruins, i.e. crude, rusted pipes supporting a crumbling archway. This would a make people ask: "Who put these horrible additions to these old, beautiful ruins?" Is it an attempt to preserve them, or simply to make these structures safe and habitable?
The light rays were difficult to create and I had trouble grasping the complicated process of their creation. What I had achieved, was too bright and garish for the piece so I took the attempted light-rays out of the film clip. However, I decided to include the rising bubbles which are a CC Snow effect simply switched in reverse.
I know there is a lot more I can do animate this clip to make it more effective, i.e. making the plant-life move in motion to the water or include light reflecting off the ground but I am confident, the more I use After Effects, the much more effective my underwater scenes will be.
I hope to find alternative ways of creating light rays in After Effects or simpler tutorials to achieve this effect. There are presets already in After Effects which I could include, such as a "Water Ripple," effect on the clip but I believe that would make the clip unoriginal and "cheesy".
Until next time ...
