Create a 2.5D ocean in After Effects for #TeamSeas

Halfway through last weekend, I get pinged about the new campaign by YouTubers Mark Rober and Mr Beast.  Its goal is to raise $30 million for two non-profits to remove 30 million pounds of plastic from the ocean.  I think it's a worthwhile goal, so dropped my plans and prepared this tutorial:

Project download: https://bit.ly/2ZjcH1m 

Video Copilot pre-compose: https://www.videocopilot.net/blog/2014/08/free-script-3d-pre-compose-tutorial/ 

Sky textures from Blender for Architexture: http://blender-archi.tuxfamily.org/

It's been on my ideas list for some time, but in a nutshell I've combined an old tutorial from Aaron Rabinowitz, a deep sea texture "recipe" of Andrew Kramer's and my own spin to take advantage of an AE camera.  I did blast through this video, and with hindsight, I'd reduce the evolution a LOT and it is quite render intensive, but overall, I think it works.

Here's a link to TeamsSeas if you're also interested in donating: https://teamseas.org/