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good crystals?


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what kind of settings and modelings too should I consider to replicate this kind of organic look in a cluster of crystals?

 

can I just go from the glass shader? do I need SSS? What should I watch out for with refractions and total light on the surface?  Any random advice or things to think about?

 

Has anyone made a shader for crystals?

post-1210-0-51165800-1414468678_thumb.jp

post-1210-0-01744800-1414468700_thumb.jp

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Here are some things that I used to do some crystals. Unfortunately i don't have a rendering at hand right now:

 

I created a variety of crystal shapes with a for each loop using booleans. This worked surprisingly well.

Next I created a system to semi randomly place those individual crystals to get the whole structure according to my needs.

 

For rendering these are a couple of things that helped (beware, rendering times will go through the roof):

- create internal geometry (cracks, bubbles, dirt) at rendertime using the vex volume procedural and rendering it as an isosurface.

- use a varying IOR and maybe include some birefringement (double refraction)

- for ultimate realism you should consider a small amount of dispersion

- those quartz crystals tend to get cloudy at their root. Some SSS, very glossy refractions and/or translucency can help

 

There are ressources which explain all the interesting optical phenomena that can happen in various crystals.

 

I can see if I can find some RnD files on a backup drive, but chances are I don't have them anymore.

 

Cheers,

Dennis

Edited by dennis.albus
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OH yea, super nice! I wish I had a bit more time to chew through that stuff. The thing I'm working on is for the Splash Screen contest and that's due Saturday. Eeep.

 

There was a thread here some years ago about dispersion. I'm wondering where the bundled material/shaders are now in H13.

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