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Glacial Crevice WIP - Help with material and render settings

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  • Glacial Crevice WIP - Help with material and render settings

    As I mentioned a few days ago in this thread, I've been feeling a bit overwhelmed banging my tiny brain against the mighty power of V-Ray. I was encouraged to post some images to ask for help, and so I've set up this scene... It's not the luminous, glowing, melancholic image that I see in my mind's eye.



    My Objective:
    My computer graphics are generally intended to be used as preliminaries for paintings in egg tempera. That said, there's unique flexibility in post processing
    I want the crevice to have the nice blue depth peculiar to glacial features and the flat ice surface to have a strong, somewhat overblown highlight. In fact, I've sort of achieved this (if I squint my eyes just right and lie to myself). The glacier-like surface is eluding me thus far.

    Currently Struggling With:
    - The glacier material should have some blue translucency. (See reference images)
    I haven't had luck in my attempts with translucency or VRayFastSSS. I'm not sure what method is best in this case.

    - The glacier material should be really slick yet maintain the broad highlight along the top of the image.
    I'm trying to get more small highlights on the details of the displacement. Different lighting?

    - The ice material behaves unpredictably, though I sometimes luck out and get nice effects from it.
    I want a bright glistening sheen off of the ice. But I think my approach to this material is simply not very good.

    - Keeping reasonably fast preview render speeds while developing the materials.
    (I'm currently limited to a P4 2.4 with 2.5GB RAM)

    Settings:
    IR + QMC
    Three Objects: the glacier, the ice and a strip of polygons with a VRayLightMtl floating within the crevice.
    Direct Light (VRay Shadows, Multiplier: 0.58, Light Blue)
    An HDRI in the VRay Environment and Reflection/Refraction override slots. The Environment with a low multiplier and the Reflection/Refraction with a high multiplier.
    VRayPhysicalCamera (f-number: 4.0, Exposure: On, Shutter Speed: 30, ISO: 800)
    Color Mapping: Linear Multiply (Dark 0.5, Light 1.0)



    Scene:
    Here's a zip file containing the scene and maps: glacial_crevice.zip (21.3MB)

    Absolutely any tips/suggestions or dissections of the scene's settings would be really appreciated.
    Thanks!

  • #2
    Downloading now.
    Will have a tinker later today.. probabaly tonight. Im sure I have seen some nice "blue" glacier materials floating about. So should be easy enough *hopefuly* to fix that part up.

    With a shot like this you may need to do as much as you can in max/vray and then tweak the colors.. blooms..etc.. in photoshop or another post program.

    Will get back to you when I have had a tinker

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    • #3
      I think i have a glacier test on my machine at work. I'll have a look tomorrow and post it.
      -----Dwayne D. Ellis-----

      Comment


      • #4
        Good Lord you use egg tempera...? That sends me back to my art history days.

        Anyway, even in CG reference is king - do you have or could you find any shots that demonstrate or at least echo what you're trying to achieve?
        MDI Digital
        moonjam

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        • #5
          Hmmmm....its a bit old but might be useful if you play around with it more.

          Heres what it looks like....



          Heres the file.....

          http://www.dwayneellis.com/misc/models/Glacier.rar
          -----Dwayne D. Ellis-----

          Comment


          • #6
            Many thanks guys.

            Dwayne: I'm looking over the glacier material in that scene now. Thanks very much for sharing it. It warns about the missing snow1.jpg and snow2.jpg diffuse maps, but the important effects seem to be there without them. I'll study over this for a while.

            AJ: Yes, I seem to have a very anachronistic workflow. Egg tempera fell out of widespread favor with the advent of oil paints in the 16th century, but I'm a sucker for the look of tempera.

            I did add a link to a few reference images in the initial post, however the motif I'm after is from my head and is accordingly elusive to me. I know what I'm after, but I admit I'm not articulating it very well. The second image is probably closest to the material I'm aiming for.

            DaForce: Thanks for giving it any thought whatsoever. If you don't have the time or inclination, I completely understand.

            Regards,
            Jason

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            • #7
              Hey Jason,

              Sorry for not replying sooner.
              Was tinkering with it for about an hour last night while rebuilding a pc.
              Tried some SSS, and kinda got it looking a little better. But had a few good ideas, but it was too late to continue. Will tweak a little more tonight.

              I was sure I had seen a nice glacier made in vray somewhere before. But for the life of my I cant find it.
              damn!!!

              Comment


              • #8
                may be this one mate :
                http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=270992
                =:-/
                Laurent

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                • #9
                  Nope already seen that one and tried to implement that into his scene.

                  The one im thinking of had a big iceberg similar to the first reference image he linked to in his last posted floating in an ocean.
                  Just cant remember where i saw it.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Kinda like this one.
                    http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthre...hlight=iceberg

                    But im sure it was in vray.

                    <edit>
                    This is the MR material used for that. (or similar)
                    http://www.jeffpatton.net/Max7/Files/MR-Glacier.zip
                    Might be good to look thru and remake in vray.. maybe there is a MR to Vray material convert

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      DaForce: Certainly not a problem! You're very kind to give any time at all.

                      Priad: Wow. Thierry's ice renders are stunning. I've downloaded the scene file he's sharing on his website and am looking it over. Interesting approach, no GI. I'll experiment with it further. Thanks.

                      Jason

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                      • #12
                        He check my edit above.. might be of use.

                        Yeah tried the ice shader on your scene. Might work with a little tinkering I guess. I used it with some slight modifications last night and was getting there.....

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                        • #13
                          Thanks DaForce! I'll see what I can do with that for sure. The first image in that thread does indeed look somewhat like what I'm after.
                          I don't have any experience converting Mental Ray materials to V-Ray, so I'll look into that next.

                          I'll post whatever I eventually come up with.

                          Thanks again for your help.
                          Jason

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                          • #14
                            hehe no problem.

                            Found this thread now
                            http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthre...er#post2642505

                            Says it was all done with max and vray.. going to PM him and try to get the material.. the thread is about 2 years old so.. hopefully he might still have it

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              What a little loosing thread
                              You are an archivist mate
                              =:-/
                              Laurent

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