[Maximus3D]

d7: Thank you i agree, the flakes still need work and i'm working on them as we speak, trying to make them appear smaller than they are in my previous examples. Soon i should have this one nailed, it's just a matter of time now. Skills escalating ? hehe, i hope they escalate in the right direction btw, i blame the recent escalation all on the displacement feature.

[Edit] : About this material, i noticed one thing while testing it and it's very sensitive to objectscale. Large objects won't look good with this material it's something that needs to be fixed. It seems to work fine for smaller objects at the moment. If i can i will adapt it for both large and small objects or include 3 different materials, one for large, medium and small objects.

/ Max

[oz42]

I think this is looking fantastic Max. Are you using SSS? The last image on your first post looks very realistic.

[Mr Whippy]

Nice.

I bet it looks nice with some soft boekh... how close up can you get to the sparkle material before the map looks a bit iffy?

Dave

[sandykoufax]

[Maximus3D]

Ozzie: Thanks! i'm using SSS but i have my doubts about it's effect on this as it takes forever to show up when rendering. To be honest i think it will be removed as i seem to be able to get pretty much the same effect without it. That last image was the hdr example wasn't it, i also liked that nice blueish tone it got from the sky.

Whippy: Thanks bokeh would probably make the sparkles stand out even more, i haven't tested that yet but it's one of the things i also thought about. Not yet sure how close i can get, but it uses a 4096 pix tileable and tiled sparkle map so i should be able to get quite close without any major issues.

Koufax: no words needed, i understand what you mean hehe so you have my thanks.

I'll be back later today or tonight with some new and hopefully improved examples.

/ Max

[m-Que]

Ahh, snow...beautiful snow, really!!! Say, Maximus, do you already have snow in Sweden...cause we DON'T and I hate Christmas holidays without snow
Great examples...it's nice to see that someone's finally doing a realistic snow. GOOD LUCK!!!

[Maximus3D]

m-Que: good to see one more fan of real life snow hehe, gotta love it, there's no winter without it but unfortunately the place where i live now sucks so there's no snow here. But where i used to live which is my real home far up north in Sweden there's quite alot of snow this time of the year (i miss that place).

Well i had planned to slack today but i had a idea i just had to test and thought i'd give it a twirl on this material and here are two testrenders i ran now.

Single Emitter


Physical Sky and Sunlight


And i need all the good luck wishes i can get, thanks a bunch

[yves]

wow, the top one looks great, almost like taking a snow picture with flash!
(the bottom one is great to, btw )

[yanada]

And The Winner Is, Maximus3D

[Maximus3D]

thank you yves and yanada i appreciate your kind words.

yves: Top one is almost a flashphoto like you said, i noticed the same thing

After spending X amount of time now on this tweaking it until i got bald (yes seriously!) i think i'm about done with it now. From all the testrenders 50+ i been running now for the past few days with the material set in a very different settings, lighting conditions, angles, positions and situations i think i can't get much closer than this to what snow looks like and how it behaves.

I will write instructions and suggestions/tips on how this material is best used, these instructions will be included in the uploaded version on the MXM site. Any problems and other questions about how it's used can be asked here in this thread, or in pm or by email or Msn. I'll try to provide as much and as good help as i can.

My final example images below, but beware there's alot of them..






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/ Max

[simmsimaging]

Well Max, the material looks pretty good. It 's just too bad you didn't test it more thoroughly to make sure it *really* works.

Great material - my money is on you to win this one.

b

[m-Que]

Great Work, Maximus!
I just loved that snow-on-sand image!!!
Say, how many days did you work on it all together?

[Maximus3D]

Brett: Hehe true, i wish i tested this more oh well, maybe next time.. thanks!

m-Que: Thank you! hehe that snow on sand rendering, silly one i know. It's using one hdr from that Dosch collection we got. Days heh.. i think i can count up to 4 days now i spent (or wasted) on this material. To bad i did it for free, or else i could been rich now.

I'm preparing the final stuff now, writing the manual, rendering the preview and then bumping it up to the MXM Gallery for verification.

Cheers!

/ Max

[-Adrian]

Very nice research Max. If it displaces all surfaces a little, it behaves a lot like a real layer of snow - neat!

[tom]

Very convincing, Max!