[tom]

I will keep playing with SSS in order to achieve a better looking (and quicker - if possible - rendering) Delrin material, but now it's better than before.

Please don't give up, they are coming very nice! I'd increase the attenuation of Delrin in order to make it look brighter and more milky. You may also like to decrease the scattering a bit and I suggest 0 asymmetry. The tank seems much better as it's not showing a hollow thickness anymore. The proper anisotropy for alu parts is still missing. I guess you don't use textures, do you? Btw, the engine cast metal is beyond the limits of reality, congrats!

[pavel59]

Thank You again. Tomorrow I'll do some tests again, now I have a couple of other projects to complete. I'm really curious to see what happens to the SSS, in fact a more "milky" appearance is exactly what I was looking for.

And about the aluminum, I actually applied some anisotropy, however I didn't follow any rule, just a matter of tweaking the material a bit, and setting the texture for a uniform distribution, that's all. Evidently I need to study the matter. However, I'm happy to see these step-by-step improvement, slowly giving a more realistic appearance to the whole model.

Next step will be some DOF.

And next one again, interior design setup. That's really getting me crazy with some unpredictable results. I feel it's matter of light distribution. But it'll be matter of another story, not here now.

thank so much

Paolo

[tom]

Cool! Because the modeling really deserves a higher realism. You're on the edge of it though...

[Asmithey]

Awesome all around!

[Eric Lagman]

Nice work. The sss on parts like white blow molded PP tanks and white delrin are something I have really struggled to get looking right in the past. Tom if you provided just those two materials to the built in Library it would be huge for product designers. Like I said I try for many hours, but cant get it right. I think the tank you show is very close though. Did you use only IBL for your lighting and no emitters at all? I have done tanks like that in the past and they never cleared with a regular emitter setup. Looking forward to more images.

[abed-sabeh]

Hi Paolo,

Finally I got the chance to see your renders. They look great. I will start playing again with Maxwell Render once I move to Italy wish me luck. Unfortunately I haven't upgraded yet to version 2.0 due to some financial issues "crises affected everyone in my region" but I hope I will upgrade it soon.

[pavel59]

Hi Abed,
nice to hear you like them. I'll look forward for you coming back to Dubai, and to get a dinner together.
I just started playing with Modo, as you suggested and I have to say I like it. It's a bit different to model polygons, but the sw is amazing.

I'm also taking some time to tweak and test with maxwell materials, this is another updated rendering of the Heli frame, I modified the Delrin material, I still need to play with it a little more, to make it more real. On next monday I should get some parts and samples of the real product from Italy, that should help, having the real thing to compare.



I hope to be able to post some MODO's test soon.

[pavel59]

Here some latest updates to the same heli, and the final artwork. MAxwell has been used for both the helicopter and logo renderings. Some minor Photoshop postproduction/composition has been added to obtain the final desired effect.

[tom]

Paolo, the tank shell looks hollow. Did you model it according to liquid-in-glass method? And the coating effect doesn't look correct. Are you sure that interference is happening on the surface?

[pavel59]

Hi Tom,
to which tank are you referring now ?
If it's the one on the heli at the bottom of the poster, that it's still the old one (the first test made).
That's because I didn't render yet the heli in that position with the new material settings, but I needed to show the final layout for approval.
I will re-render it with the new correct settings, to include in the production artwork.

[tom]

I mean, besides the change in materials it should look like this in the assembly.

[pavel59]

Yes Tom, that's exactly the way I built the new tank (as it's visible on previous images and in the first two of the latest published as well).

I mean, the tank with the reddish gasoline visible inside has been built that way.
The "hollow" tank depicted on the left-side-looking heli at the bottom of the poster had a double wall plastic construction, with no liquid inside.
I think the one depicted actually had two separated surfaces, one inside the other, with two different materials applied. The outer wall had a semi-glossy plastic, more transparent. The inner one had a matte plastic with a higher roughness value. It definitely didn't work.

I still have to work more on the aluminum parts, however I would like to ask you a question: when you suggested me to adjust the anisotropic value and to carefully set the UVs accordingly, which kind of surface finish did you have in your mind ?
Were you considering brushed aluminum or what ?

I'm fully aware I didn't study the aluminum material so deeply, however I feel it looks not so far from the actual finish of the real objects since they're cnc machined and finely sandblasted.
I'll look for getting some actual pictures of the real parts, and we may discuss teh best way to render that material properly.

Thank you again for your kind and valuable support

Paolo

[tom]

Yes, I saw the last image and thought it's new. But, for some reason the tank shell still looks a bit hollow. Maybe, it's too thick and Nd is low, that's why. Anyway, it looks much better than the old one.

Of course, I didn't see your original aluminum parts but I suppose they are looking something like:
http://www.modellers-world.com/catalog/ ... Alirod.jpg
http://img-europe.electrocomponents.com ... 393-91.jpg
http://www.supplierlist.com/photo_image ... y_Part.jpg
http://www.supplierlist.com/photo_image ... illing.jpg

...unless the sandblasting truly brings the isotropy back.

[pavel59]

Hi Tom, here you can see something. But consider the these pics show prototype parts, the production batches are much smoother and finely sandblasted. I will look for better pics.

[tom]

Yes, they obviously have the kind of anisotropy I'm talking about. Try it on a simple cylinder first. As you know, a cylinder with zero anisotropy is isotropic, which means no long micro-grooves by the process. Now, if you make anisotropy greater than zero, it will start to break the isotropy but it's totally free of surface UV, so it will be different dependent on camera angle, which is strictly not suitable for our purpose. Now, assuming a typical cylinder has UV coordinates (just like cap surfaces and the side apart) you should materialize them separately. So, try it on the side first. The map should go into Rotation slot, which controls the direction of grooves. Start with 0 angle map, I mean a pure black texture. Simply put a pure black texture into Rotation and set the anisotropy value you need. You will notice the side of the cylinder will start to make specular reflections in a ruled orientation.