Although orcas can be found in all of Earth’s oceans, the different populations vary considerably in behaviour, diet, dialect and appearnace. In fact, there are at least 10 recognized ecotypes distributed across southern and northern hemispheres.
According to the UK organization Whale and Dolphin Conservation, the fjords of Arctic Norway attract the North Atlantic Type 1 ecotype, a unique population of whales who have mastered the “carousel” feeding technique. Having followed the numerous (and plump) herring to their overwintering spots around the Norwegian coast, they use carefully choreographed manoeuvres – passed down from mother to daughter in matriarchal family pods – to separate and corral shoals of herring, stunning them 15 at a time with explosive underwater tail slaps, so they can casually nibble on them one-by-one.
As we start putting together our “Life Beneath Water” submission for the Metaverse for SDGs competition, I have been keen to have visual immersive elements that take people into the heart of the Norwegian fjords, to see how the herring sit at the centre of a complex and vibrant ecosystem. A large part of this will be presenting the wonder that is carousel feeding.
Step 1: Animating the orca (Attempt 1)
Before I left for Norway, I had put together a 3D model of an orca that I was fairly happy with and had even got as far as rigging it for animation. But, having never actually animated anything in Blender before, I decided to wait until I got back to jump into that new challenge. Thanks to a course on Udemy that I had purchased last year, I was able to extract enough of the basics to put together a crude animation of the orca swimming through the water and even opening its mouth. I was pretty happy with it as a first go, but was somewhat disappointed by how “mechanical” the motion was – I hadn’t captured the smooth flow of the tail movement, and I had no idea how to achieve it. It would have to wait for another day while I moved on to the next step.
Step 2: Modelling a shoal of herring
I love Youtube. Or, more specifically, I love the people who take the time to make tutorials and post them on Youtube. With the simple search “Blender shoal of fish” I came across a comprehensive four-part tutorial on modelling, shading, animating and “particle-izing” low-poly herring to make a very effective shoal of fish. I highly recommend these tutorials by yojigraphics. I learned a bunch of cool new techniques for UV unwrapping using a projection, applying different shader nodes to get realistic effects, learned how to rig an armature from scratch, and how to do some nifty things with Blender’s particle system. Hopefully I can do some similar stuff in Unity, because ultimately I’ll be porting these models across and using them to build a VR environment.
Step 3: Animating the orca (Attempt 2)
Having experienced some epiphanies while making my shoal of herring, I was ready to revisit my orca model, to try to get the locomotion animation looking a little bit more realistic. I think I must have added and deleted the rig about 20 times before I got something that I was happy with, but the process was very valuable – learning through failure and all of that (thank god for CTRL + Z). Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find much information about orca biomechanics, so I’ve had to rely on watching videos and trying to figure out the flow of the movement (and thinking about my own biomechanics when I attempt to swim butterfly). I think it’s definitely an improvement from the first attempt, but I’m hoping to find some experts who can offer their thoughts and recommendations on how to improve it.
Step 4: Putting it all together
After finally getting a basic animation I was happy with, I fell deep into the Blender whole this afternoon and couldn’t stop before having a go at making my orca swim around the herring shoal as if corralling a bait ball. I am ashamed to say that I was so absorbed that I didn’t leave the house today… But, I think it was worth it. I certainly had some false starts (CTRL+Z for the win. Again), but once I’d figured out how to map out a path to follow, it all moved surprisingly quickly. I then had to read up on how to render the animation, and I CERTAINLY have to learn some more about render settings and what not, but I am ridiculously pleased with how it turned out – even the rudimentary camera pans (which I’m sure any actual videographer would laugh at). Looking forward to continuing to build out the animation.