I’ve been inserting chandeliers into my interior renderigns via PhotoShop. Now I’m being asked to build them in 3D. Yikes! Does anyone have any experience, tips or materials they are willing to share? Or do I need to find a new job.
Thanks, Craig
yikes… new job time mate.
heheh well its gonne be HEAVY on the poly count, you could use splines for the large bits then distribute the glass beads?? along the splines so that you get the nice curve… then just use a slighly modified basic glass material i reckon. And finish off with the top bits.
Most of it shouldnt be too hard.. you just make a small segment then copy-rotate it around until you have the full thing. I would reocmmend you model in lowpoly with turbsmooth or something similar set to have affect at render time only. Would make viewport work much easier.
Make a curved spline. Path follow with a sphere/crystal shape with the spacing tool. Duplicate and rotate around axis. Should get you most of the way there.
But yeah, you may want to start looking elsewhere as soon as they start asking about caustics.
OK, So I build a super low poly 3D model. Sounds doable. Now the REALLY hard part: Crystal looking material. This thing has really got to look alive and sparkly. I’ve tried a few experiments with a basic glass with a map applied. Can’t seem to get it to look right. Looking at real crystal each facet has a different color and brightness. Its almost like I need to randomly assign a zillion colors and brightness levels and glossiness to each polygon. I’ll keep experimenting and see what I come up with. However, if there is a kind soul who has already done the hours of experimentation and has a really great crystal material, I’ll be very very very grateful.
Craig
Just do a few searchs … there is plenty of stuff for exactly what your after..
There are more as well i think 
http://www.chaosgroup.com/forum/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=13010&highlight=diamond
http://www.chaosgroup.com/forum/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=12616&highlight=diamond+material
http://www.chaosgroup.com/forum/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=5547&highlight=crystal+material
Oh, yeah, I didn’t think to search on diamond. Crystal didn’t give me much. Thanks again.
Craig
no problems.. good luck.
i think i “may” have a scene setup somewhere with a proper working diamond material with dispersion.. will try to find it when i get home.
or how about setting it up like that awesome “No GI” ice tutorial?
Totally fake, but definitely ‘wow’ results…
FOund this matlib on my puter. Cant remember where I got it or who made it. But its worth a shot
www.apex.net.au/~daforce/vray/dispersion.rar
Enjoy 
olitech:
THAT WAS PERFECT!! Just a few changes and WOW, I am amazed at how realistic my crystals look and how fast it renders. I’ll post once I’ve finished the project.
DaForce:
The dispersion mat was also great. It was a bit more complicated and took a bit longer to render but the results were fantastic. I need to play with it more but it looks like it has a lot of potential.
Thanks both for the responses.
Craig
*HIGH FIVE!*
so can we see a test?
let’s see the test!
let’s see the test!
good idea with the ice tut.. forgot about that… works wonders hey
Yeah the dispersion mat is kinda of you wanted to go the Ultimate route… but render times obviously would suffer.
so yeah about these test renders…
Here is the first test I made using the Ice tutorial. I was able to get quite a variation in color and refraction by playing with IOR, exit colors and fog settings. The first inset image was used as the sphere material, the second image was the plane material and the bottom shows the settings for one of the images (although I don’t know which one). Comments and suggestions are very welcome since I am quite new at rendering this kind of material. Craig
wow, great job on the crystal material, looks very convincing
-dave
Nice! it works!
Looks pretty damn sweet!!!
Here’s another variation on the crystal chandelier material. In this one, I used Hilight glossiness to reflect more light. I used a blurred image of the room as the sphere map (see ice tutorial for explanation). In photoshop, I composited the blurred room image with the crystals, added a few sparkles and the results are beginning to look believable. Again, suggestions are welcome.
Craig
Ya, I have a suggestion…post some more =]