[Maximus3D]

Pawel: I been looking at your method and results both yesterday and today and as i wrote in my post a page or two back that you chose a very difficult material to add those sparkles to. And i think that's what we're seeing here, because of the pretty big variation of colors and color intensities in the stonematerial you need to boost the ND of your sparkles very high or else they won't show up at all and that in turn causes other issues when it's applied in a scene.

I would probably have chosen a slightly different approach for that material, one where i handpainted in some larger horisontal streaks of crystalized stone which reflects/refracts light and then played with that using a similar type of setup.

One thing i'm not so sure about is the colored sparkles map with the stones visible in it, i think you can do that differently with a 16bit greyscale map instead and no stones visible in it. But i'm not sure, just brainstorming out loud now..

When you submit this maybe you should include two versions, one with sparkles and one without so people can choose which one they wanna use.

Anyways, i think it's nice to see you play with this more complex type creation instead of just adding a displacement map and a colormap and then you're done.

/ Max

[Mr Whippy]

Sparkles in the stone are just like small mirrored crystals.

Surely not best to add a weight map, then have a normal map for that layer, so they all point in varying directions, so you get random sparkles from all different angles...

Not sure on the material, but it needs to be opaque tinted (general stone colour in that area, so maybe pickup colour from 90deg base map?) glass probably!?

Dave

[Pawel Kruk]

Thanks guys for your insights.

def4d:
I have no problem in getting those sparkle in lab conditions (strong emmiter light, black background) but I'm after some more universal setting. Afterall it is an outside material and will be lit with sky/sun most of the time, but I'm getting closer.

Maximus3D:
I must admit that colour noise map for sparkles was not a great idea. It supposed to be cheap trick for refrlection and refraction that cristals have but with 1-3 pixel sparkles it just dissapear in the background. I have now some better results with far more simple maps and settings. I think it's a good idea to make only few rocks sparkle. This way it may be even more noticable and natural.
It will be on the separate layer so you can always switch off.
Displacement is so much fun, too bad that my clients do not share my enthusiasm I would have finish this by now.

MrWhippy:
For sparkle layer I did not use normal map, only for diffuse and specular. I want to keep this separately so you can switch off if not needed. I'm not sure if I understood you but when I set high specular value for this layer it starts to reflect sourandings and there is no sparkling anymore, or if by "opaque" you mean high roughness (something like a sea salt cristals have) ... than it might work.
Will be back with some tests soon.
Thanks again.

[mverta]

To do sparkles, you don't use a normal map or a bump map. Metallic flakes trapped in/on surfaces point in all sorts of random directions, so the best way to simulate them is with anisotropy and an angle map. Bumps and normals just raise/depress the surface and this has nothing to do with the effect you're looking for.

Restrict your angle map values between 0,0,0 - 64,64,64, and make them grayscale. For this type of application, values above 64 begin to "mirror" other angles and actually steal from the effect. Consider that 0 degrees,180 degrees, and 360 degrees often look identical in an anisotropic render (except for things like cylinder tops where you want the "crosshatch" look; then you use the full range), so if 0 degrees=0,0,0 and 360 degrees=255,255,255, then the halfway point (128,128,128) would equal 180 degrees. Since 0,0,0/128,128,128/255,255,255 look the same in these contexts, you begin by limiting your range to 0-128. Except I've found that once you cross the 90 degree threshold (64,64,64), 100 degrees looks like 80 degrees. So for 99% of my "sparkle" materials, like carpaint, etc, I make my angle maps full range in Photoshop, and then just before saving, Level Adjust them down to 0-64. It creates a very, very dark map, but Maxwell can still discern the full range of values in there.

Color-wise, your reflectance maps for the sparkle layer should themselves be sparkly - usually black and white only, or with a few color variations, depending. My carpaint sparkles are usually a lighter form of the base color, and some whites. I use the same map for 0 and 90 in this case, with a roughness usually around 20-30, but it depends. Do not use a weightmap, just use the weight slider to control overall presence.



_Mike

[Mr Whippy]

To do sparkles, you don't use a normal map or a bump map. Metallic flakes trapped in/on surfaces point in all sorts of random directions, so the best way to simulate them is with anisotropy and an angle map. Bumps and normals just raise/depress the surface and this has nothing to do with the effect you're looking for.

I thought a normal would make the bit point in a certain direction only?

This worked quite nicely on the metallic paint that someone made, which is the same principle, lots of randomly orientated faces suspended in/on another material...

Yes Pawel, like sand or similar. Surely just adding a glass material with a low transmittance (near 0), and a colour tint (orangey yellow), and then have a weight map with small squares and pentagons and triangles etc, and then have a clone of this map with each white 'crystal' with a different normal colour.

I thought that would work fine, it has worked before (though with metallic flakes) with the paint materials.

Dave

[Maximus3D]

Interesting.. very interesting, now i know what i could have improved in my snow after reading what you said Mike. Thanks

Pawel: Did you finish your nice material and upload it yet ? hurry up or you're gonna miss the challenge deadline now on the 31st. You don't wanna miss that!

Here's a couple of recent one's i just finished, the pitted rusty metal one is kinda a personal experiment to learn some new stuff. I'm not sure how useful it is ..probably not very useful for anything.

As usual, click on the thumbs to view them fullres.


Btw, wonder if d7 is satisfied now with the displacement examples we posted, or if he wanna see some more. hehe

/ Max

[Pawel Kruk]

Hi all,
Hope that everybody had a great Christmas (like me ) and I'd like to wish you all Happy New Year!

mverta:
Thanks for your precise and helpful instructions. I did my best but I must admit that I'm not a graphic designer neither skilled maxwellian and it was my first material I used anistropy with so... I had to use weight map for sparkly layer in the end to make sparkles only on the stones and not the mortar. I'm pretty happy with the result (finally) but your critics are very welcome.

Mr Whippy:
It worked but in the end I used anisotropy for this effect only because it works more "randomly" and "light-dependant" which is something I was after. Thanks anyway.

Maximus3d:
It is uploaded just now, go get it and let me know if it works for you. Happy to hear your opinion. Great materials BTW, my fiance loves the lace tablecloth thingy. Could you try to make some part (yarn) thicker than the rest? It will look more natural.

Thanks all for your insights.

[m-Que]

After a long-long period of suffering...comes my very first displacement material:

Displaced out of a single plane primitive, without a use of a model.
Production time: -Infinite-
Production budget: around 10 Euros (payed for the pizza)
~In loving memory of Pizza that was sacrificed for making this material~







I have uploaded the material to the MXM Gallery a few minutes ago. I wonder if it will be available till 2008.

[Bubbaloo]

That's awesome!
Kind of disgusting, but awesome...

[Maximus3D]

Pawel: I'll testrun your shader next year, which is not far away now thanks for sharing it, i'm gonna pick it apart and see how you set things up. Btw, thanks for your comments on my shaders. The cloth one works as it is, but your suggestions was useful. I might update it later on as it's already on the MXM Gallery.

m-Que: LOL that material looks just great!! you know with that you got yourself a winner in the competition, i'd definately vote for your pizza. I also been thinking about creating such a material a while back but i could never afford to buy the reference material itself so i had to give up on that idea. Anyhow, great work!

This last shader was supposed to be uploaded for the current displacement challenge but i have no time to finish it on time as i'm taking a break now to spend the new year with my father. I wish i had time to finish it as i'm becoming quite satisfied with it's look but there's some more work that still needs to be done before i can call it finished. Anyhow, i include a testrender and a referencephoto of it



Happy New Year to you all.

/ Max

[bunkiojo]

Holy Crap! That pizza is awesome!

[JCAddy]

Pizza looks great, but I wouldn't eat that thing. What's with the pink all over it?

[m-Que]

Pizza ingredients:
HAM - (the pink thing)
MUSHROOMS
OLIVES
SPINACH
and...DISPLACEMENT

The pizza is called 'San Marco', but as far as I know every pizzeria calls their pizzas anyname they want, except most famous like: Funghi, Margaréta etc.

Nothing to be worry about: the pizza was fresh, when I made photos of it.

[Kyriakos Tsouloupas]

I was looking for Maximus3D Portuguese roof tile material or the dragon scales one and they are not on the MXM site anymore. Anybody knows why?

[frosty_ramen]

As far as i know Max is avoiding the mxm Gallery, im sure if you pm him you can get what ever materials he has posted in the past.



dan