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Crystal material in DS?

BagboyBagboy Posts: 170
edited February 2013 in Technical Help (nuts n bolts)

Hello-

I've been trying to dial up a crystal material in the Advanced Surfaces tab and found the task a bit over my head.

I'm talking about the polished kind like for a pendant.

Is there a guide or rule of thumb for this kind of material? Do I need to venture into the Shader Mixer?

Is it even possible to achieve a reasonable facsimile in DS?

Is there perhaps a "cheat"?

Thanks for any direction, tips, or advice!

Post edited by Bagboy on

Comments

  • AkhbourAkhbour Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    Out of the head:
    Set material to Plastic Glossy, Reflection to white at at least 60%, Refraction to 100% with an index of about 1.6, Glossines to 40-50%.
    Use a light blueish diffuse colour, specular colour even lighter.
    If you don't have an enviroment (like a closed room) use a Reflection map (you can easily make one, using a circular rainbow gradient, or any colourful ref map from your runtime) which you plug into the Reflection colour.

  • adamr001adamr001 Posts: 1,322
    edited December 1969

    These are for "glass" but the only thing you need to do really is change the Index of Refraction to make them crystal: http://morganrlewis.deviantart.com/art/Glass-Shader-Presets-for-DS-86711865

    Remember that with Crystal/Glass/Reflections in general you need a full environment sphere and a decently high raytrace depth (2 is bare-bones minimum, try 4 if you're doing reflections of reflections).

  • BagboyBagboy Posts: 170
    edited December 1969

    Akhbour said:
    Out of the head:
    Set material to Plastic Glossy, Reflection to white at at least 60%, Refraction to 100% with an index of about 1.6, Glossines to 40-50%.
    Use a light blueish diffuse colour, specular colour even lighter.
    If you don't have an enviroment (like a closed room) use a Reflection map (you can easily make one, using a circular rainbow gradient, or any colourful ref map from your runtime) which you plug into the Reflection colour.

    Wow! Thanks Peter! That worked great!

    I never thought of using a reflection map on anything before. I'm going to have to do some experimenting with that!

    Thanks again!

  • BagboyBagboy Posts: 170
    edited December 1969

    adamr001 said:
    These are for "glass" but the only thing you need to do really is change the Index of Refraction to make them crystal: http://morganrlewis.deviantart.com/art/Glass-Shader-Presets-for-DS-86711865

    Remember that with Crystal/Glass/Reflections in general you need a full environment sphere and a decently high raytrace depth (2 is bare-bones minimum, try 4 if you're doing reflections of reflections).


    Thanks Adam!

    I think it's the Index of Refraction that is initially messing my head up. To make it even more confusing, I'm transitioning from Carrara, and while I didn't really understand it there either, nevertheless, the "index" seems different. Or at least I can't see the correlations.

    Can you tell me where to set the raytrace depth in DS?

  • BagboyBagboy Posts: 170
    edited February 2013

    Well, in taking a closer look, Carrara and DS indices of refraction aren't so different after all.

    I just have to delve into the subject a little deeper.

    Thanks again Peter and Adam!

    Post edited by Bagboy on
  • BagboyBagboy Posts: 170
    edited December 1969

    Moving back just a little, I've been trying to add a "reflection map" to the reflection material (in the absence of a real room setting), but I fail to see any difference.

    Would the result be dramatic and apparent? Or subtle?

    I've tried bright color patterns like has been suggested. I'm not really sure what I should be seeing as a result.

    Thanks!

  • adamr001adamr001 Posts: 1,322
    edited December 1969

    What's your Reflection Color set to? If it's other than 255,255,255 and you're using a map, you can expect some strange things. Also might want to up the Reflection Strength to 100% and see if shows up well.

  • BagboyBagboy Posts: 170
    edited December 1969

    adamr001 said:
    What's your Reflection Color set to? If it's other than 255,255,255 and you're using a map, you can expect some strange things. Also might want to up the Reflection Strength to 100% and see if shows up well.

    Thanks for the quick reply adam!

    Yes, I have it set to 255,255,255. Also tried a lot of different colors to see if that made a difference.

    Reflection strength is also set to 100%.

    Crystal-reflection.jpg
    800 x 451 - 81K
  • adamr001adamr001 Posts: 1,322
    edited December 1969

    I don't see the map attached in the Color channel?

  • RarethRareth Posts: 1,458
    edited December 1969

    adamr001 said:
    I don't see the map attached in the Color channel?

    also make sure smoothing is turned off or you might not get the hard edges on the crystal.

    I made that mistake and it took me a minute to figure out why the crystal looked more like a blob, than a crystal.

  • adamr001adamr001 Posts: 1,322
    edited December 1969

    Sorry I'm blind, I see it now. I'm not sure why it's not working except to ponder what version of DS you're using. That looks old. ^_^;;

  • JaderailJaderail Posts: 0
    edited February 2013

    That is just a Screen Cap of your Viewport. Lots of times you need to do a Spot render to see what the Effect really looks like.

    EDIT: Nevermind you did. Stumped.

    Post edited by Jaderail on
  • BagboyBagboy Posts: 170
    edited December 1969

    adamr001 said:
    Sorry I'm blind, I see it now. I'm not sure why it's not working except to ponder what version of DS you're using. That looks old. ^_^;;

    Good eye! I'm using DS3.1Advanced here. Will this idea of a texture map in the Reflection Color channel not work in this version?

    I do have DS4Pro too, but I wanted this to work in the older version too.

    When I saw your earlier post, I thought you meant I needed to put the texture map into the Diffuse Color channel, which made a goofy kind of sense to me. %-P

    Thanks again!

  • BagboyBagboy Posts: 170
    edited December 1969

    Rareth said:
    adamr001 said:
    I don't see the map attached in the Color channel?

    also make sure smoothing is turned off or you might not get the hard edges on the crystal.

    I made that mistake and it took me a minute to figure out why the crystal looked more like a blob, than a crystal.

    I actually thought of that and found the toggle for it.

    I'd previously created a similar item trying to simulate rhinestones and didn't think of it that time.

    But, thanks for the reminder!

  • BagboyBagboy Posts: 170
    edited December 1969

    Jaderail said:
    That is just a Screen Cap of your Viewport. Lots of times you need to do a Spot render to see what the Effect really looks like.

    EDIT: Nevermind you did. Stumped.

    Thanks Jaderail!

    All my previous experience has been with Carrara and the transfer to DS is constantly stumping me too.

  • adamr001adamr001 Posts: 1,322
    edited December 1969

    I'm really not certain why this isn't working for you. It's clearly working in DS4.5. Unfortunately I don't have an install of 3.x setup to test with but it really should work and I'm quite surprised it isn't.

    Here's a 4.5.1.56 example render:

    201302140817_refl_map_test.jpg
    1200 x 722 - 108K
  • adamr001adamr001 Posts: 1,322
    edited February 2013

    Note that on the main facing facet, the ACTUAL reflection is overwhelming the map because the background is black. Maybe changing the background to white would help? I'd have to test. :)

    Post edited by adamr001 on
  • BagboyBagboy Posts: 170
    edited December 1969

    adamr001 said:
    Note that on the main facing facet, the ACTUAL reflection is overwhelming the map because the background is black. Maybe changing the background to white would help? I'd have to test. :)

    Can I ask what the map you used looked like? Was it a collection of color patterns?

    It almost looks like a map of an actual room. But then again, I don't really know yet what visual result any of this should look like.

    Thanks again, adamr!

  • adamr001adamr001 Posts: 1,322
    edited December 1969

    Map I used was just a bunch of golden circles, more noise than anything else but you can see the pattern in the reflection if you look.

    You can mostly see it if you look to the right at the reflection color line, that collection of little gold circles is the pattern

  • RarethRareth Posts: 1,458
    edited December 1969

    you can also put things inside crystals,

    relfection map is an abstract I did in bryce as a spherical projection render,

    all the other crystal settings are from suggestions made on this thread.

    red-crystal3.jpg
    1024 x 768 - 524K
  • BagboyBagboy Posts: 170
    edited December 1969

    adamr001 said:
    Map I used was just a bunch of golden circles, more noise than anything else but you can see the pattern in the reflection if you look.

    You can mostly see it if you look to the right at the reflection color line, that collection of little gold circles is the pattern

    Ah, okay. I see it now. This time I was blind! %-P

    Meanwhile, I think I'm getting closer! What I found was, in the Specular channel, turning OFF the Multiply Through Opacity gave me more expected results.

    I'm not exactly clear what the Multiply Through Opacity would be used for, or why. Probably as I go through these settings and gain more familiarity, I'll figure it out.

    I'm not even sure I'm thinking of this crystal shader correctly, but I think it is reacting better.

    Thanks again Adamr!

    Crystal-reflection2.jpg
    801 x 366 - 75K
  • BagboyBagboy Posts: 170
    edited December 1969

    Rareth said:
    you can also put things inside crystals,

    relfection map is an abstract I did in bryce as a spherical projection render,

    all the other crystal settings are from suggestions made on this thread.

    Wow! :gulp:

    So you did a spherical render of the scene with the figure and then wrapped that image around your crystal in the Reflection channel?

    Do I have that correct?

    Very cool!

  • adamr001adamr001 Posts: 1,322
    edited December 1969

    Oh yes! Turning off Multiply through Opacity is a must.

  • Silas3DSilas3D Posts: 561
    edited December 1969

    Love the crystal pendant in the image attached above - which set is it from?

  • BagboyBagboy Posts: 170
    edited December 1969

    tigerste said:
    Love the crystal pendant in the image attached above - which set is it from?

    Which crystal pendant in which image? ;-)

  • eiliestleiliestl Posts: 100
    edited December 1969

    Bagboy said:
    tigerste said:
    Love the crystal pendant in the image attached above - which set is it from?

    Which crystal pendant in which image? ;-)

    Did you download or make that crystal pendant?

    Crystal-reflection2.jpg
    600 x 274 - 25K
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