Digital Art Zone

Anyone have a formula for making an easy “gummy” shader in Carrara? I want something that looks like gelatin, a gummy bear, etc. I’ve only used out of the box shaders until now, or made really easy ones, so instructions that make no assumptions about my knoweldgeI (since i have little) would be so very appreciated!

I’d buy such a shader if I could find one somewhere.

You can do it yourself, no need to spend money you don’t need to spend, or use cookbook formulas. All it takes is a little knowledge and a little thought…and a gummy bear. So go out and get a gummy bear. I’ll wait…

No, seriously, the best way to develop a shader for anything is to get it in your hands and look at it. Second best is get a photo.

So get a gummy bear and hold it up to the light. What do you see?

It has color. That’s obvious. If you hold it up to a bright light, does light pass thru it, or is it totally opaque? Well, you can see that light passes thru. It’s not transparent like a window, but light does pass thru. Can you see stuff on the other side? No, but still light is passing thru it.

Okay, so now you know it has color, and it has “translucency”, because light passes thru it (trans - thru, and lucent - light). But it’s not “transparent” like a window. But one more thing you’ll probably notice is that it kind of glows around the edges. It’s subtle, but it’s there. That’s because light enters the gummy bear, bounces around inside, then comes back out and into your eyes. But it only does that around the surface, forming a kind of glow around the edges. That’s called “subsurface scattering”, because it’s light scattering under the surface then coming back out.

And really those are the major components of the surface. Yeah, it’s got a slight bump also, and a little bit of highlight, but those are relatively minor.

So try setting up a material that has those parameters, play around with them, and see what you get.

We’ll wait….

Here’s a candy I just designed, called a “Gummy Goober”. All the shader has is subsurface scattering, plus a hint of bump and highlight. Translucency is part of the subsurface shader.

Although I broke my own rule and didn’t use a gummy bear as reference, so it could be totally wrong.

Looks nice Joe.

Joe, that is a great description of the settings and what they are used for. That’s a nice render too…good enough to eat.

Bravo sir!

Thanks Joe. That looks great. I did play around with your suggestions and came up with something that I think will work. Still tweaking. I REALLY appreciated your help.