Sculptural Marine Life

A study of glass in the ocean.

Liz Wu
MDE 2026
Hana Khurshid
MDE 2026
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1 Chihuly-inspired jellyfish.

Our project stems from Liz's obsessions with jellyfish in aquariums. We were very inspired by the movement of jellyfish in water and were struck by the similarities between them and glass. Using Fologram, we sculpted the shape of the body and legs with motion and used Grasshopper to create a dynamic 3D model. Once we had the model, we took it into Blender to visualize the interaction of a glass material with light and water. The shader for the body and legs of the jellyfish were created using vector math, calculating the distance between points and the geometric origin of the separate objects. The shaders for the light and water allow us to mimic caustics and how light interacts at different depths of field.

Project video
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2 A representation of Liz and Hana as jellyfish.
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3 Points to object timeline