[Forester]

Artificial stone basins, lighted water spigots. HDRI lighting.



It may be that the light coming from the right hand rear is just a little too strong.

Nothing real special here - just got the light to illuminate the parts of the models that I intended to feature - with HDR lighting.

[Forester]

Same HDRI with strong direction used for oblique backlighting of another drinking fountain model. It seems to do a good job. For this kind of work.

[Mark Bell]

Looking good~! I like what you're achieved with the water. Is this using RealFlow?

[Forester]

Thanks, Mark...

Yes, Realflow. I've finally gotten decently good at Houdini, but Realfow is far, far superior for making small and mid-sized fountains that come out exactly as you design. Much better control over the shape and behavior of the fluids. These all came out as intended on the first try. ... You can't see the brass drain in these shots, or the water also draining down the drain hole in the center, but for some of the other shots I made, the water is visibly draining at the bottom of the basin. Also, I suceeded in making a reasonable bubbly foam material via Substance Designer, but my client thought it took away from the overall image, so we just went with this plain white material with an emission slider to control the amount of light in the foam.

So, for architecture, ... Realflow is the way to go. You can form water effects to exactly fit into your design aesthetic. I would like to have current Alembic capabilities in Realflow so that I could transfer animations to clients, but, alas, development of Realflow stopped a few years ago, so No Joy on that score. But for stills, can exactly meet the client's stated wishes with Realflow.

[Mark Bell]

I had a trial of Realflow from the Next Limit team late last year as we had a potential project that could use its features but unfortunately the project didn't progress, but I found it quite easy and intuitive to use and really open to one's imagination on how to apply it. There's plenty of YouTube videos available - here's one to inspire you on your current work - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnv-95w1d5A&t=147s There's another one I came across last year of a simulated shipwreck against a rugged coast rendered in Maxwell - you'd swear it was film footage! I sure hope the team at Next Limit keep the good work going with both these software products.