Hi! 
I did quick water droplet test. these droplets are done in thinking particles with instanced geometry. I will maybe try some animation too when I get some time.
looks awesome.
mind telling me how it’s done?
They look awesome!
great test, a bit to regular IMO
looks good, but something isnt sitting right for me
Absolutely beautiful.
I think what’s throwing people off is that you have so many tiny particles… the sense of scale is somewhat distorted by that.
How did you generate the mesh?
Did you use glue3d or something like that?
Best regards,
Dieter
Thanks for comments to all ppl
I modeled 9 drops and used them as instanced geometry in thinking particles . large particles were with randomized z-rotation and some size/scale variance. Small particles were born in different group. After that I used particle pass operator wich measures distance between the two particles group positions..and removed droplets wich were overlapped. After that I used one large softbox to light the droplets. This test was just for to see how would droplets come up when particles with instanced geom. droplets are spread over the surface instead of using displacement. I used about 7 hours to test and rendered all in one pass. after that I did some adjustments in digital fusion for a final look.
I think there is possible to have very nice droplets on brushed metal surface when rendered seperated passes and use some time in comp and also doing some research
next time I defenately should use sharper softbox as seen in current droplets the reflection is little blurry. it should be sharp. Im not also very satistfied with the brushed metal surface wich is quite hard to get good looking and means a lot of tweak.
Best Regards,
felixi 8)
Thanks for the explanation on how you did it. Now that I look at it some more, there are a few more ideas on how to improve it:
1) Many of the droplets are close enough together that they would merge into a larger one. Particularly some of the big ones in the foreground that are touching, and some of the little ones as well. Perhaps your overlapping script should check for other droplets within an offset distance of the droplet surface, not just simple overlap.
2) Your metal grain is looks strong enough that I believe it would affect the shape of your droplets. I would expect the adhesion of the water to metal to follow the grains a bit, and thereby distort their shape somewhat. eg, the droplets would be slightly more inclined to follow the groove of the grain rather than spread over the ridge of the grain. Subtle, but it would make a difference, especially on the smaller droplets.
I like the soft glow on the drops, I’m not sure you need to sharpen your box, as that would affect your metal as well. Overall I think it is a stunning image, and I have it set to my desktop background 