Digital Art Zone

Ok, I worked out why I was getting reflections with nothing to be reflected!! The reflection colour MUST be set to near black - but not pure black. Foolishly, I had it set near white with a tint of blue that was why the eyes were glowing in appearance.

@Chohole - Your son was totally right… Uber Surface base shader really *is* necessary.

Here are the quick test renders…

I’ll continue to tweak the parameters.

Some progress…

Using Specular and Specular2 as the primary eyeshine. Still playing with the settings. Specular2 is the bright highlights of the eyeshine while Specular1 is a base for the rest of the pupil.

Reflection colour is 35 35 35 or about 80% black. Reflection is 20% blur and 60% Strength.

No ambient at all.

Below are three renders, the first is Spec1, second Spec2 and last both specular channels combined.

Edit: Combined image comparison below.

Looking good. Great progress

Oh wow, those look really good.

Haha! Thanks you two

Here is some renders of lighting as it rotates around the face, light is locked on right eye. I did this to check that the specular reflections were behaving. I think I’m getting close now… I’ll have to give it a go with the full lighting set as well as some Night lighting.

I think my day off from work has proven rather productive

Yes, I would say so.  I need to set a character up especially to go any further with my Bryce try, as the one I am using doesn’t have enlarged puipils. I tried with a night time lighting setup, and I got a great glow from the pupils, but the Iris didn’t react so well.

marcusfinnigon - 27 August 2012 01:56 AM

haha! Yeah I better conqure reflections reflections first lol, I’ve found atm that environment reflections illuminate without lights or anything to reflect! and raytrace isn’t reflecting the light other than a white dot! Thinking maybe Bryce is the way to go at this point

Could you post an example?

Kendall

chohole - 27 August 2012 05:29 AM

Yes, I would say so.  I need to set a character up especially to go any further with my Bryce try, as the one I am using doesn’t have enlarged puipils. I tried with a night time lighting setup, and I got a great glow from the pupils, but the Iris didn’t react so well.

Yeah, I havn’t yet tried the FULL Riddick look yet but it will be interesting to give it a go.  I’m thinking a 3D Riddick would go well for a Sci-Fi or Halloween render thread! Although the genesis render thread thats going might be a good place too.

Kendall Sears - 27 August 2012 05:32 AM

marcusfinnigon - 27 August 2012 01:56 AM

haha! Yeah I better conqure reflections reflections first lol, I’ve found atm that environment reflections illuminate without lights or anything to reflect! and raytrace isn’t reflecting the light other than a white dot! Thinking maybe Bryce is the way to go at this point

Could you post an example?

Kendall

It’s all good now, I realised the specular channel was the key to the reflections, the actual Reflection channel had to be at a low setting with a reasonably black Reflection colour. It was doing my head in at the time, as it was giveing a phantom glow to the pupil without any light or anything to reflect.

Thanks man for the concern

Night Render

After toying with a Riddick Render I descovered there must be some form of direct lighting… Specular lights are great! If not a 50% Ambient of the desired eyeshine colour covers it.

Here’s an example of what I mentioned with the pointlights for glow…

That last example of yours looks great… very well done on the eye shimer effect!

chris - 28 August 2012 01:10 AM

Here’s an example of what I mentioned with the pointlights for glow…

That last example of yours looks great… very well done on the eye shimer effect!

Wow, that’s a fantastic render chris! Love the cyclops glowing eye I certainly see what you were talking about, very effective I might add!

Yeah, I’m still playing with it atm, It’s eventually became more of a multi specular list of parameters. Like in the real world, It’s actually rather difficult to light accurately within the full scene… I tried out a Riddick character using similar approach, but the anatomy of Riddicks eye (I’ve found) is somewhat different to the pupil of a cat like eye.  But of course, particularly the first couple of Idea’s really re-enforce the Multi Specular material in a full set of lighting… Ambiance Idea definitely helps when necessary!

With anyone intending to attempt Riddick eye style, Kendalls Idea for the use on the Pupil and the Iris is definitely the way to go!

But as far as what I’m going for, (The Cats eye) I’m getting close I think. When I’m done tweaking, I’ll post my findings in a tutorial for everyone to use

Ty… The pointlight idea can be quite usefull but also very difficult to achieve… it took alot of tweeking and a whole whackload of renders testing different settings on the light to get it right… but the pay-off is worth the effort in the long run…

Well done thus far and it looks like you are point on for the effect you’re trying for… I’ll look forward to seeing the end result

chrisschell - 28 August 2012 10:46 AM

Ty… The pointlight idea can be quite usefull but also very difficult to achieve… it took alot of tweeking and a whole whackload of renders testing different settings on the light to get it right… but the pay-off is worth the effort in the long run…

Well done thus far and it looks like you are point on for the effect you’re trying for… I’ll look forward to seeing the end result

Yeah I imagine it would! I filled up my desktop screen almost completely with test renders with the eyes I was working on, thats not including the save overrides I did.

I’m setting up a full scene which is in progress as well as finalizing the texture parameters… Just trying to set up some good lighting, with a soft direct light and camera angle that will give full attention to the subject of reflective eyes. That Is almost as much work as making the eyes lol

Lol… yeah… there are 3 things i’ve noticed that take more work that anything else about a scene… setting up good surfaces for the effect you want, getting the lighting right and getting it to work with your surfaces… and camera placement and settings… a scene that takes 5 mins to set-up and fill with figures can take hours of futzing and tinkering to get the surfaces and lights to co-operate… and then all that can still be ruined with bad camera settings and getting those just perfect can take just as long as the surfaces and lights!  lol