JELLYFISH! (asset, breakdown) (Patreon)

After years of tweaking, I finally made a jellyfish I'm happy with!* 

The above isn't really a full tutorial, because I haven't found a way to make them consistently good, but the technique is very straightforward (basically just: "wave modifier"), so feel free to check out the video above! 

Here's the blend file, if you want to use it for anything, or go poking around in the nodes (they're... nonsense). It's under a megabyte, which is wild, but I guess makes sense? Or something went wrong and the file will be empty. I don't think an FBX export for this would be practical, since it's using a blender modifier for motion, and a bunch of mixed-up blender shaders, but I should really look into how forgiving shaders are between programs. 

Here's the texture I made, if anyone wants to use it (you might want to open the image in a new tab before saving to make sure you're getting a non-compressed file?)

*[and for those of you conceivably thinking, "wait jellyfish? Wasn't he working on a robot arm for the hyperbole so he could finish that so he could go back and finish Dynamo Dream? Has he lost the plot a bit"YESsss I definitely have and the detour has lead me straight into the venomous appendages of our aquatic friends. And also because I'm phasing back into trying to wrap up Dynamo Dream, and I want a vendor that sells jellyfish in little jars as "Luckfish", which I guess isn't a good way to keep wildlife, but since they don't have brains, as long as they're well taken care of, maybe it's jellyfish heaven? Look what do Jellyfish want we can make this happen. Create a Jellyfish Matrix for their nonexistent Jellyfish Minds as we turn their phosphorescent bodies into nightlights.]

(I'm pleased by the embossing on that jar!  Also-while the jellyfish render fairly quickly in general, once the light paths are refracting with jars and water and bump maps and all that stuff gets pretty wild)