The star of the seas — the world's largest cruise ship — we had the honor of crafting the main visual for the ship's lounge bar area. Our task was to produce a 15-minute looped video depicting underwater life, synchronized with the local day and night cycle. My primary responsibility was to orchestrate the overall visual design and create an immersive experience for guests. Additionally, we developed a special "mermaid moment," for which I designed the costume and overall aesthetics.
We were deeply honored to create a unique visual experience for Royal Caribbean's Star of the Seas — currently the largest cruise ship in the world. Our team had the privilege of designing a breathtaking, immersive video installation for one of the ship's signature features — an ocean-view space that feels almost like a living underwater world.
For this project, we crafted a 15-minute looping video that plays across two panoramic windows, essentially turning them into virtual aquariums showcasing a vibrant array of marine life. We included around 15 different types of animated sea creatures — everything from jellyfish to a variety of Caribbean fish species — each with its own unique day and night animations.
This meant orchestrating a seamless transition from daytime to nighttime scenes, all rendered in C4D Octane render without the luxury of real-time tech. In the end, despite the challenges, the result was a truly magical visual that brings a piece of the ocean's beauty to life on the world's largest cruise ship.
Two 15-minute masters drive the panoramic windows by day — one for the Left window, one for the Right. A separate night cycle takes over after dark.
The shots either side capture the loop as it actually plays in the lounge — same room, day and night.
The shots either side capture the loop as it actually plays in the lounge — same room, day and night.
Each species was modelled, rigged, and animated independently so the ambient loops could be sequenced without repeating. Jellies, mantas, anemones, schooling fish — each one with its own movement signature so even a long sit at the venue feels different every minute.
For the fish animation, we initially used some pre-made assets from a 3D fish package we had on hand, but we wanted to add a layer of realism and uniqueness to the way they moved. To do that, we turned to Houdini to create procedural animations that allowed us to extend and customize the fish behavior. Each fish was set up to follow specific paths and respond to certain elements in the scene, all done procedurally to keep things flexible and natural.
Every animation is built to loop seamlessly, but the cycle isn't flat — each species gets its own signature moment: a wide, slow glide for the manta; a soft pulsing drift for the jellyfish. Quiet hero beats hidden inside the ambient flow, so a 15-minute sit at the venue still rewards a long look.
We actually had a clownfish animation in the mix at one point — kind of a nod to a certain famous movie fish — but we decided to leave it out in the final version to avoid any overly recognizable references. Still, the animation turned out pretty amazing, and it was a fun challenge to tackle.
The signature beat of the show — a special mermaid moment that breaks from the ambient cycle. I designed the costume and the overall aesthetics, treating it as a hero hit inside an otherwise meditative world.
Day and night variations of the moment let the venue programmers cycle the show across the schedule without it ever feeling like a repeat.
The mermaid's costume was painted entirely in Substance Painter — every texture and pattern laid directly on the skin. Normal maps and displacement do the heavy lifting, making the surface read as if the patterns were physically raised on the body.
A handy approach for iteration: any time the client wanted a different look or a round of feedback, we could repaint the textures without ever touching the underlying geometry.
Royal Caribbean
Monks
Arice
Arice
Kousha Motamedi
Ivan Ray
2023