The inside of energy 01

[Erik Heyninck]

A bit risky to post this on a modeller's forum where everyone strives towards being more realistic than Nature herself...
The setup is minimal: a helix twined around a cilinder with spheres arranged to it, another helix with spheres, a fractal-based relief, pyrocluster "clouds" and lots of texturing. Minimal postwork.

Have fun, and best wishes for the forthcoming Winter Solstice!

[Gary David Bouton]

Erik---

So when did "3D" have to be photorealistic?

Thanks for a green and red, very Seasonal post!

My Best,
Gare

[Erik Heyninck]

Thanks, my friend. Just to let you know that I work hard on modelling, and that I consider it very, very important. In fact: I only flirted a bit with 3D in the beginning, but I become more and more fascinated by it. And it is more fun than the other digital applications.

[Gary David Bouton]

Erik--

I've watched your work blossom over the year(s). I know very well because it shows in your WIPs and posts that you take 3D seriously, and yeah, it's a kick to work in 3D after working for eons in 2D applications.

Keep it up. Only someone who is an artist to begin with will make the best use of 3D programs.
Even if one doesn't consider themselves to be an artist.


My Best,
Gare

[Erik Heyninck]

I've always been fascinated by alchemy. So...

This is a first wip of a bottle. The material inside is created with Pyrocluster. This is a plugin that creates smoke-like effects, but that can be used for various other undefined materials.

To keep it inside the bottle, I had to use a sphere to which is was limited. Remarkably enough the material grew to the bottle itself, which is noticeably bigger than the sphere. So I controlled this phenomenon in the real world, and it is caused by the reflective quality of the glass material.
The glass itself was a difficult one, as it had to be old and a tad leaden. Ahhh...this is no flirt anymore: this is true love.
Enjoy!

[Gary David Bouton]

Erik--

To me, the Pyrocluster looks like a painting on the surface of a beaker, and not a brew inside the beaker.

Two suggestions?
1.) Get a background going that shows glass for what it is: a material that distorts and shows the background to the viewer.
2.)Try to show the edge of the glass. Glass has thickness, and if you can get the pyroclusters going clearly inside the boundary of the glass, then you got...um, ALCHEMY [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img] !


My Best,
Gary

[Erik Heyninck]

Good suggestions. As was expected (grin).
One of the reasons that the chemical material made with pyro is a bit blurry etc is because I wanted to give the glass a bit of an age, so I added some roughness to it. When I take that away, the glass looks too plastic, so I have to restart tweaking the material.

I can also set the particles to a lesser emmission state so there is less "material" inside the beaker which would show more of the glass...

Pyro is not that difficult, really. As with most things you have to specify WHAT has to be done, and WHERE you want the effect. The Pyrocluster material defines what, and the Volume Tracer where. Most often, the Volume Tracer is placed on an Environment object because the smoke or whatever has to be seen in the environment of the scene. Yet you can also place it, like I did on any shape to confine it to that shape. The Pyro Material itself is added to an emitter of particles. It also allows preview. Here it is best to experiment with every setting. Then, because Pyro is a time-based renderer of smoke etc, you have to drag the timeline tab and try out with very small renders (saves time). To get pyro into a bottle like I did, you have to place the object to which you linked the Volume Tracer, here a sphere inside the bottle-with-a-glass-material and make it smaller. The reflection of the glass makes the pyro material reflect on the edges, so you do lose the thickness of the beaker.

As for the thickness of the glass: I will redraw the beaker with a spline (or a vector in Xara-hehee much easier- to control and export as AI) and rotate that around a spline.

This beaker was made, as an experiment, from a sphere from which I flattened the bottom (give points the same Y value) and extruded the top. Just trying out whether this method offers more options than spline-nurbsing.

Then I could add shadow, radiosity...but then I might have to let my poor "old" (???) PIII800 render for at least 24 hours I suppose, as Pyro itself is also very processor-intensive...

Thanks for the comment, and 'till soon.

[Gary David Bouton]

...bring us all dual processing G4s and/or
P4s with the latest clock speed, and bring all of us at least a gig of RAM!


Mt Best,
Gare

[Erik Heyninck]

Right. I added a ground material, reduced the pyro in size and tweaked the glass. Not yet finished, but...any ideas?

[dalel]

Its a completely different look, but very hot! (snicker)

I also liked the original. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]


Why, I’m afraid I can’t explain myself, sir, because I’m not myself, you know...
- Lewis Carroll