IRAY Rain [Commercial]
KindredArts
Posts: 1,229
Quick Note: Since this isn't my standard fare, i've moved it to it's own thread. Hope nobody minds!
IRAY Rain
On my travels i've noticed that the lions share of artists i come across tend to post-work weather effects into their pieces. Since daz doesn't currently have native tooling for such systems, like particle generators and such - i've tried my hardest to develop a series of integrated solutions. The first of which is "IRAY Rain".
Iray Rain is a comprehensive set, comprised of a main rain system, a choice of puddles and a set of impact splashes for low angle rendering. This set utilizes a different approach to single poly camera rigs, or 3d droplets - opting for staggered geometry over a large area. This means reflections both off camera or a large distance from your subject can be picked up and cascaded amongst neighbouring geometry. The puddles and splashes are also affected by this, giving a pretty neat result! The shading took quite a lot of tinkering to get the desired effect, but remains practical among differing lighting methods. Presets for varying intensities are also included.
Some sample renders:
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Comments
This looks awesome!
Beautiful. More please! Can you show the impact splashes?
Thanks Dragon!
Sure thing! I've attached a render with both the light rain and splashes active. They are quite subtle, and blend with the rain effects. I've also attached an isolated promotional image of the splashes - again, they are for more convincing when used in context (with rain).
This looks good! What's the computational overhead like?
excellent! this is turning out to be an great year for having major daz/iray wishes fulfilled. total yay! :)
how long do you reckon we'll be holding our breaths before this rain falleth upon the shop?
j
That really looks great! Can it also simulate lighter rainshowers (the ones with the smaller drops)?
Quite low actually. In terms of performance, you are probably looking at something similar to sickleyields fast fog. I don't use SSS but there is more geometry over a wider area. In my first post, the city scene took 9m 40secs to render, and the trains took 8m 20 (both 60%) on a single titan x.
Thanks Jardine! It's already in QA so my guess would be a couple of weeks, give or take.
There are a few presets for different shower types included with the pack, including varying intensities. This isn't a one-shot deal though, i have a few ideas in motion using the same framework to deliver varying weather effects. Also, the actual texture inputs are quite simple, so customers can plug in their own alphas and manipulate tiling where they see fit.
Thanks for the renders. Can the splashes be independently moved and resized?
The splashes load in small sections, not splash by splash (i thought that could be a bit tedious). Those sections can be fully manipulated however you wish.
Beautiful! I was thinking of non-flat surfaces such as tops of umbrellas and bonnets of cars.
Yes, with some tinkering, this is definitely possible. You can also use it in tandum with sickles rigged water - i believe that has single splash effects. My one regret is that i have a pretty great method for covering cars in static droplets, like this, but unfortunately it has to be done on a car-by-car basis :(
Dumbstruck.
This is absolutely awesome. I have used several things over the years for rain but this looks like it gives the exact results I have been looking for.
-must have- !!! ;-)
Thanks guys, hope you enjoy!
Looks great!
Is there a single splash you could use for a dropping tap or something like that?
that looks really great!
Thanks Kerya! I'm afraid single splashes and ripples won't be included in this pack, mainly because sickleyield has already done it in this pack. I've centered this set pretty much solely around large scale environmental effects, as not to tread on other peoples toes. If you'd like to focus on single droplets and splashes, this set might be for you as well (also by sickle).
Thanks SF! Sterling work on your metal shaders by the way. :)
Definite purchase. Looks really good.
Looks good - I have used Nerd3D's Splash Tool (I think it is) with Iray, but that took a fair bit of faffing to get a good feel to it!
Cheers Bikey, hope you enjoy it!
I can't say i'm familiar with that Simon, but as i've mentioned above, in terms of 3d water effects - sickle has some great stuff. This is an environmental effect, so aside from using material presets, there really isn't much you have to do with it. Just throw it in the scene, pick a preset if the default is too heavy, and render away. I experimented with making it more complex and customizable, but in the end it made very little difference, so i scaled it back to one click solutions. Here's hoping it hits the spot!
Looks like I used the 'splat' figure from Nerd3D's Rain Tool for the splashes and RawArts's EnviroCam for the actual rain. Went round and round with trying to get the spalshes to look as wanted (even to using a coconut oil shader!), messing with the actual shader, opacity, diffuse ... ;) One handy tip that was half-suggested was (for the wood planking of the pier that I used in the render) was to darken the diffuse and add a geoshell to which I applied a suitable shader, and to that I added a normal map to add a degree of 'non flat' look.
Positioning all those splashes might be frustrating over an irregular surface, but it's an immersive must-have for a product like this. Impressive, as usual!
Is there a way to recolour the rain (to give the impression of blood, milk, oil, acid and other liquids) or could the liquid simply be given a relevant Iray shader for that? Or have it hitting at a diagonal angle, to give the impression of wind?
This looks pretty slick!
The master himself, thanks buddy!
Xeno! I was wondering when you'd pop by. In the first two renders i kicked the thread off with, i didn't use splashes, just straight up rain and puddles. I did use them for the shot outside the pub (above) because it was a low-angle shot. Having the splashes in scene really rounds things off, but bumpy terrains are certainly still possible.
Good idea on the materials - It's absolutely possible to change them up. The only textures at play are alpha maps, the rest is shader work. Fiddling with SSS and glossy color can simulate a variety of liquids, even quite viscous ones. If i get some free time i might upload a set of my own freebie presets, but it's very easily done if you want to have a go yourself.
Sideways rain is a bit tricky, and it's something i'm trying to work-out for a similar weather simulation. This method uses a grid based system similar to the one used in the UE3 Samaritan demo. Because of this, any directional deviation might produce odd results. If it was a particle or mesh effect, it would be fine, but of course those methods have a significant computational overhead at larger scales.
That pub is still on my wishlist!
Sounds like it should do well with some liquid Iray shader combinations, like Mec4D's and Sickleyield's. I'd bet the splashes would work really nicely with vegetation for rainforest scenes, too.
By how much can the intensity be dialled up/down? It looks as if a 'lesser' version would be perfect to simulate interiors with lots of moisture dripping down from the ceiling, like disused laboratories, wrecks or caves. Maybe even for large vehicles or robotic costruct undersides 'bleeding' oil or hydraulic fluid.
The rain looks good! It would be nice to have a non postwork solution for that! :)
Definitely interested.
There are 4 presets of varying strengths, using three different alpha maps. The lightest version is very subtle, but each of them can be further edited in the surfaces palette anyway. I see no reason why it can't be used in hangers/caves provided the gloss is bumped up on the surrounding environment.
Thanks KM! When postworking effects like this, most of the time is spent trying to match the lighting and environment. Hopefully this removes that headache for a lot of people.
Glad to hear it VB!
Depending on the nature of the product a 'gentle' use of X (or Z or Y) Rotation might suffice?