Hi all,
my client is asking me to find a way to show some panels (6 meters height) of architectural foam. I attached a photo of the given sample.
I thought the best solution would be to work with Corona Fractals but after a quick research, I fear it might be a quite slow and demanding solution.
I am happy to consider any creative solution.
Thanks!
F
Poly model the panel with holes, mesh smooth and combination of noise and displace?
Hmmm tricky to get it super accurate, how far away is the camera going to be viewing these panels? This is what I came up with after 20 minutes of messing around. Basically Corona scattered loops with some deforms on the ring like structures, and it renders quickly. Let me know if you would like the scene
the scatter option looks promising! thanks a lot! I will give it a go and post any progress! 
thanks a lot again.
F
To me the reference photo looks like some buggy geometry, with a lot of self intersections and overlapping.
I agree.. No one here in the office likes the feeling of that sample…but the architects are very keen on that! 
Anyway, we are still trying hard…we manage to work out the model for the far away shot…but the one for the close up no where near to be found.
I rally like it… is it in production? Who makes it?
Does the light need to pass through it - or will it be cladding on top of an opaque surface?
If it’s the latter and you’re not super close then you may be able to get away with using a cellular map piped into diffuse, reflection, gloss and bump to create a plausible effect. I did something similar once - same kind of structure but it was made out of metal.
edit I had forgotten that I had the light passing through it too. That was probably a displacement with a cutout in that area. Attached are two crops. Texture was scaled up so it could read better as the camera was on the opposite side of the street.
