Cliche subject, but at some point you just gotta do sharks.

Actually I was hoping to simplify things a bit as I try to develop 
skills in uv maps, lighting and texturing.


In my posted examples, issues of modelling and some uv mapping glitches 
aside, my question is, does anyone here know what color these animals 
actually are?  Any shark afficionados out there?

I was using this as a reference
http://www.discoverydiving.com/shark_gallery.htm
Can anyone help me analyse what I am actually seeing there in terms of 
the animal's skin color and finish?

The renders posted are
1) Monochrome shark to give some sense of the lighting and normal
2) Bitmapped color added v1
3) same bitmap brightened and desaturated a bit

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Hey Jim,

It looks as though the Sand Tiger is a shiney brown.  Most sharks 
usually have a matte finish but I see quite a bit of light being 
reflected in some of the pictures.  You'll probably want to make it a 
nice copper hue with a light specular finish.  Then don't forget the 
blue scattering media for the water which turns the shark green fairly 
quickly.  Its all about tweaking and more tweaking.

Skip

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Jim Charter <jrc### [at] msncom> wrote:
> In my posted examples, issues of modelling and some uv mapping glitches
> aside, my question is, does anyone here know what color these animals
> actually are?  Any shark afficionados out there?
>
> I was using this as a reference
> http://www.discoverydiving.com/shark_gallery.htm
> Can anyone help me analyse what I am actually seeing there in terms of
> the animal's skin color and finish?

Well, the dual dorsal fins says that's a sand tiger, and they are officially
described as: "bronze from above but increasingly paler below. Juveniles
have reddish or yellow-brown spots on the tail and rear end of the body
that fade with age."

And don't forget the remora.  No self respecting shark ever leaves home
without one.

RG

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Maybe I can help, a little bit. I've seen some *real* sharks, up close and
personal. No, not in the wilds, but over at Sea World in California.

The great white has basically medium grey skin that goes paler on the bottm.
The skin is surprisingly rough, like sandpaper, so it's quite a matte
surface. They're usually covered with a thin layer of water though which
makes the skin look shiny when it's out of the ocean (such as when the
shark is partly out of the water. This shininess won't be visible
underwater though).

The salt water most sharks live in has a strong blue or blue-green filtering
effect which can have a strong effect on a shark's coloring, varying with
distance from the camera. There's no one correct ocean color, as the actual
color of the ocean can vary quite a lot from place to place, due to such
things as the depth of the ocean (deep water looks dark blue usually while
very shallow water over white sands takes on the lovely turquiose hues so
beloved by tropical island photographers), what the local material on the
ocean floor is, how much silt is in the water, how much plankton and algae,
and so on.

It can be hard to determine shark colors or the colors of anything else
undersea because the sunlight usually passes through a lot of water before
it reaches whatever is being photographed, tinging everything blue or
blue-green. The deeper down, the more filtered the light becomes. Most
divers carry a marine flashlight of some sort which brings out the colors
in such things as tropical fish and corals and such.

Tiger Sharks are a medium tan color, sort of like wet khaki pants, with
darker spots of dark brown to black. Most other familiar varieties of shark
are a plain medium grey in color with whitish underbellies.

Hope this helps.

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"Jim Charter" <jrc### [at] msncom> schreef in bericht
news:42cc2595@news.povray.org...
> Cliche subject, but at some point you just gotta do sharks.
>
> Actually I was hoping to simplify things a bit as I try to develop
> skills in uv maps, lighting and texturing.
>
>
> In my posted examples, issues of modelling and some uv mapping glitches
> aside, my question is, does anyone here know what color these animals
> actually are?  Any shark afficionados out there?
>

In my contribution to the Surrealism round of the IRTC, I used a shark (from
the Taschen Collection, so no credits to me!).
AFAIK, they are dark grey on the back and white on the belly, but there are
several species, and probably different too.
I thought your shark is a little bloated at the middle... Shouldn't it be
somewhat more streamlined?

Thomas

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Hey Skip are you still chasing storms?

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Jim Charter <jrc### [at] msncom> wrote:
> my question is, does anyone here know what color these animals
> actually are?  Any shark afficionados out there?

Hi Jim !

I think your model is a Grey Nurse Shark:
http://www.epa.qld.gov.au/images/nature_conservation/grey_nurse_shark.jpg
http://www.dinosoria.com/requin_taureau.htm


Rene
http://rene.bui.free.fr - online portfolio

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"Jim Charter" <jrc### [at] msncom> wrote in message 
news:42cc2595@news.povray.org...
> Cliche subject, but at some point you just gotta do sharks.
>
> Actually I was hoping to simplify things a bit as I try to develop
> skills in uv maps, lighting and texturing.
>
>
> In my posted examples, issues of modelling and some uv mapping glitches
> aside, my question is, does anyone here know what color these animals
> actually are?  Any shark afficionados out there?
>
> I was using this as a reference
> http://www.discoverydiving.com/shark_gallery.htm
> Can anyone help me analyse what I am actually seeing there in terms of
> the animal's skin color and finish?

Sharkskin has the texture of sandpaper - at least in one direction and is 
much smoother when going with the flow.

Your monochrome shark is nearest to native coloration.
However sharks in water (like all other submarine creatures) are percieved 
as a function of illumination.
The red end of the spectrum falls off dramatically with depth.
So underwater photographers often use flash illumination and filters to 
brighten things up and balance the color.
See e.g. http://www.rov.org/educational/pages/LIGHTING.html for a graph.
And there are a gazillion other issues relating to surface illumination, 
surface texture, clarity/turbidity, (blue) reflected light from sea beds 
etc.
Have fun...
DLM

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"Rene Bui" <ren### [at] freefr> wrote:
> Hi Jim !
>
> I think your model is a Grey Nurse Shark:
> http://www.epa.qld.gov.au/images/nature_conservation/grey_nurse_shark.jpg
> http://www.dinosoria.com/requin_taureau.htm
>
>
> Rene
> http://rene.bui.free.fr - online portfolio

You never know what you'll learn with POV!

The only sharks here with that distinct shape & double dorsal fin is the
sand-tiger.  After I saw the picture in your links I looked up the
gray-nurse and found its the same shark, just called different names in
different parts of the world.  Here's some photos that show the coloring
well...
http://www.arkive.org/species/GES/fish/Carcharias_taurus/more_still_images.html

It's funny, because we have nurse sharks here, but they don't look like
that, particularly the jaws and tail. Ours look like....
http://www.kidzone.ws/sharks/photos/nursepic1.htm

Well, now I'm halfway to combining two of my favorite pastimes; Pov-Ray &
diving.  Now all I have to do is figure out how to get POV running on my
Suunto dive computer...

RG

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Thanks to everyone for all the links and comments.  That model actually 
began as a sort of generic shark probably more along the lines of a 
great white, with the wide head for massive jaws and streamlined shape. 
  But it kept gravitating towards the species with the smaller head in 
proportion to the body which for me always seems more menacing.  Just 
like on those mannered late Roman statues, the exaggeratedly small head 
makes the body seem more powerful even while it would be actually the 
huge jaws of other species of shark that are more dangerous.  So now 
that with the help of you all I can actually fix on a particular species 
to model, it is time to take the mesh back to the shop for some 
significant improvements, hopefully.  Meanwhile the lighting is going to 
take a lot more understanding obviously.  The link on how to do 
underwater lighting was very informative on that.

The most current render looks like a step backwards. lol.

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