Modelling Jellyfish Kami

 

Taking inspiration from real-world jellyfish and stylised versions found in Ponyo, I set about creating kami jellyfish for my final animation. Material attributes were a priority over texture itself, which, for continuity purposes, followed an ethereal glowing white seen in my existing kami models. 

These Jellyfish Kami spirits, alongside my fish Kami spirits, will be the most common spirits within my animation and will populate most compositions within my final outcome. 

I created the characters' simple shape with half a sphere, extruding inwards for mass. Frequently using the circularize tool to keep the structure soft. 

I experimented on duplicates before settling on three jellyfish character variations, then moved onto texturing. I anticipated material tests to be tedious as this character not only glows, but is transparent. 

I applied an aistandardsurface, removed any specular and gave it slight opacity by increasing transmission. I feel this first render looks too much like glass. 

Adjusting the IOR fixed this problem and made for interesting results, which lack the depth of shadows. 

Using background trees and lighting, I established a decent balance between material transmission and emission. This render shows a slightly opaque and glowing material on my jellyfish models. I found this most suitable as it reveals the interior jellyfish layer, some of the background, and the shadows cast within its cavity. This combination best suggests the anatomy of the character, whilst also being ethereal.  

Important Material Attributes:

- No Specular

- IOR: 1

- Transmission: 0.6

- Emission: 0.150