"Ocean Delight"-shore module- water FX project
Hi everyone!
I have something to show and wanted to see if it sparks any interest.
I have been having a close interest, almost an obsession I would say, with rendering realistic water in Iray. And, as probably like many who have tried, I got increasingly frustated by Iray's inability (or my own lack of knowledge) to properly render water with all the usual effects we see in the real world - I am talking about refractive and reflective caustics, underwater light shafts and a progressive darkening of the water with depth. I've seen and tested myself the various workarounds using volume cubes and spheres attached to cameras and various projectors to mimic the said effects. But, as those workarounds proved to be somehow useful, they were not exactly delivering the realism I was after and each approach had its own limitations.
So, to cut to the chase, after a long time of experimentation, learning curve and, as usually happens, "happy accidents", I finally ended up nailing my long quest and made a somewhat "universal" working "rig" that is able to produce those effects pretty realistically. So, as you can see from the attached example renders, I was able to produce refractive caustics that can be seen also from above the water not just from under it, that can also produce realistic lightshafts and best of all, this approach does not need additional volumes or projectors. So now, the water looks realistic from above as well as from below.
Although this approach I came up with is not entirely foolproof and does not overcome the Iray's own limitations, IMHO is better than what has been achieved with Iray so far, and easier and faster to use.
Anyway, I let you be the judge of it and am eager to hear what you think of it. Thank you for stopping by.
Comments
A side note I forgot to mention, all the example renders were done with the same shader setting and lighting.
Looks good, I am impressed
Looks awesome! I'd buy it.
I can't promise to buy, but those images are impressively realistic.
YES!!!!!!!!! you know I am interested in this and will purchase it day 1 if released!
Looks outstanding! I have been dying for an unbiased realistic caustic water environment
I'm definitely interested, especially if the product is easy to use.
What he said.
Until I enlarged all your images, I thought they were photos. Some of them still looked like photos even after I enlarged em ;)
Laurie
Those look great! It may be too much, but I'd like to see something large enough (tiling?) for calm ocean scenes.
Looks really nice.
What were the render times for the images, you have posted.
Looks great!!! What are the render times?
Very interested!
I would buy it ASAP!
That's impressive water!
As others mentioned, render times on what system would probably be the deciding factor for me. The I certainly would like to get it to dissect it and understand what you did there :D
Thank you everyone for the warm interest and encouragement. I am really glad my work proves to have such an appeal. What can I say? I'll have to see if Daz is also interested and if I get a positive response I'll get to work polishing this thing and getting it ready for release.
To answer some of your questions regarding ease of use and render times now...
It is pretty strait forward and easy to use as I concieved it to be this way, pretty much a click to render thing. Since this approach I took is highly interdependent on shading and lighting setup and relies on fine tuning of certain parameters, including render settings, it will most certainly be in the form of presets regarding these three variables. Mostly to circumvent Iray's limitations regarding shadows cast through volumes and refractive surfaces at certain light angles and in order to maintain the caustics and light shaft effects showing properly and realistically. But, one can of course play without restrictions within certain ranges that will be explained.
Regarding render times, those example renders took between 10 to 40 min to render on my machine at about 80 percent convergence when I stopped them since they were looking clean enough for the intended purpose. As one would expect, the above water renders took less time than the underwater ones. Volume, transparencies and caustics take more time to render but this is the "price" to pay for increased realism. And, as everyone knows I think, things go up as you fill your scene with more and more stuff, especially when hi-rez textures are involved.
So, thank you all again and fingers crossed...:D
Is this primarily shaders, render settings, or what?
And any hope any of it will be Merchant Resource?
These are very nice renders , it looks interesting I hope your efforts pay off
This isn't something I'd buy, but it's definitely a high quality shader.
Thank you ! I bet you would ! You know how it is...once the "secret "is revealed, all looks simple and you wish you would have thought of it yourself. You made me smile though and I thank you for that as well. I hope the render time info I posted is indicative for what you needed to know. My system is 4 years old and by no means cutting edge by today's standards.
Will, all I can say for now is that my "rig" is using the standard Daz Iray uber shader. The way it is used and the set-up is what makes the difference. And like I mentioned above, it involves shader, light and render settings in unison to make it work, plus a "trickery" that, for obvious reasons I am not going to reveal just yet. But, let me first see if a positive respose from Daz comes my way and I will decide about Merchant Resourse later on.
Thank you kindly!
Definitely interested.
I say that because I have a project in mind that would involve a lot of underwater stuff and don’t want to get all sucked into water effects.
I would buy this TODAY! Awesome! Please DO offer them!
well like you I have been wanting something like this since Iray/DS came out. My own attempts so far have failed in getting the shown quality but I have gotten close. I am intrigued with how you got this far with just the Uber Shader etc. As far as I know Caustics will only work with geometry and not Bump. Normal or Displacement maps so again I am intrigued. Lastly yes I would buy it immediately and I don't buy much stuff these days as I am have gotten really picky over the last few years. Top stuff IMHO
Looks fantastic! Insant buy from me.
The images are impressive! I would definately buy this.
Looks great!
Been trying to get there in Shader Mixer and some things were promising, but I'm just not educated enough in MDL to make it work. LOL. If this was all done on the Uber Shader I am much intrigued.
Laurie
..colour me impressed. I like the first two particularly. I have some scenes I'd like to do that are set on the Croatian/Dalmatian coast where the water is crystal clear and boats look like they are floating on air.
This looks to be very promising.