Reef WIP

[Upon Infinity]

Yep.  That's the stuff.  I feel it needs something on the left, like a shark or something in the shadows.  Feels like there's a little too much dead space there.

[cyphyr]

Two more, one with some depth processing on the saturation.
I think I need to practice the technique some more and having blocks of different coloured coral will help show up the effect.
The composition needs some work too and I want toge a lot more coral on the outcrops.
Cheers
Richard

[Upon Infinity]

That's more like it!  I think anything you do after this is just perfectionism creeping in.  If I'd add or change anything at this point, I'd let a little light hit the statue a bit.  My eye keeps getting drawn to that point and frustrated that it can't see more.  Other than that, great work!

[Jo Kariboo]

Very nice and realistic vegetations ! Do you create the vegetations ?

[Dune]

These are very nice, Richard! I like the colorful fish and corals, really gives it a lot of depth. The first one of the two is better, a bit of mystery adds to the scene. In that respect I disagree with UponInfinity; the statue is a mystery, I'd keep it that way. Now for some blur in the distance!

[mhaze]

The second one is my favorite - great work!

[TheBadger]

Is that a statue of Athena? In any case, can you share where it came from?

[cyphyr]

Is that a statue of Athena? In any case, can you share where it came from?

Not sure if it's supposed to be Athena ... It's named "Gera apophiose" and comes from Archive3D.
Richard

[gregtee]

Really starting to come together. 

[cyphyr]

Another version, still not quite right.
The thing with the light attenuation s that is not like de-saturation, similar but not the same. The colour channels are bled out, but not to grey but to the overall colour of the water column at that point.
Thanks kaedorg for the info on colour depth change.
I'm doing another render now with including some "Macbeth Boards" to see if I can get a better handle on it.
Cheers
Richard

[gregtee]

Your snell's window should be more cyan with white for the brightest areas around the sun.  Right now it's very magenta which indicates too much red.  The sense of depth overall though is really nice. 

[Dune]

I didn't know the term 'attenuation', but if you want the color channels to bleed out, you could probably use the convert 'blue nodes' plus a color adjust or surface layer blended by a (or more) distance shader(s) to decrease each channel, before putting them together again.

[mhaze]

Impressive!

[cyphyr]

Of course you have depth pass that is used to de-saturate the background also has to be blurred separately so it can then be used to add some depth blur ...
Getting more physically accurate but I think I have lost some of the drama ... which is ok since there wasn't much there in the first place
Cheers
Richard

[Dune]

I still like it very much! Maybe the blur is slightly too much... I was thinking the same with mine. Just a little may be enough.