procedural guard rail

[Dune]

@ Matt: Does not compute? 

It'll all be clear soon: watch out for an update on the Hillside Road at NWDA. In the meantime I'll refine it a little bit more, and think if I can come up with something else to go with roadsides...

[Walli]

lampposts? Mailboxes? Hot dog stalls?

We need information ;-) Looking forward, looks really interesting

[Tangled-Universe]

@ Matt: Does not compute? 

That's about the biggest compliment you can get Ulco, because seemingly Matt also has nó clue about how you did this

[Dune]

Good, that makes my day  Better update now rendering with the refraction index set to steel (2.5). RT reflections take ages, so that's a no-go.

[Tangled-Universe]

Good, that makes my day  Better update now rendering with the refraction index set to steel (2.5). RT reflections take ages, so that's a no-go.

That's a good decision as you wouldn't see mirror-like reflection anyway, especially if the steel is galvanised.
I think galvanised steel may have a different IOR anyway, but it shouldn't differ too much. You can actually use your steel surface colours as a mask to make sure that the brightest patches of galvanised steel don't reflect as much as the darker patches. I think that may look best and also adds interesting variation in specular pattern.

Truly awesome work, once again, Ulco. I'm really looking forward to get my hands on this as I have seen some very inspiring photo's with roads lately.

Cheers,
Martin

[Dune]

Yes, I was thinking to add the particular specks of zinc or whatever it is, so it looks like the typical galvanized steel, and maybe blend the reflection by that as well. I'll look it up beforehand at google or along the road. I'm still looking for a way to smooth the terrain for the rocks (fake stones), and not get straight edges along the road. Bit of a struggle, so I'm now warping the edge a little extra.

[Dune]

Doesn't this look familiar somehow (think blues)?

[FrankB]

If I had to give this a shot I'd say that's a very long and thin SSS warped along the road, floatig a bit. It's "held" by regular (modulo) displacements along the road
Well, that's what I'd do (or try).

Either way, it's genius and quite cool!

Cheers
Frank

[cyphyr]

Of course it could be an SSS masked plane ...
Very cool work however it's done
Richard

[FrankB]

If I had to give this a shot I'd say that's a very long and thin SSS warped along the road, floatig a bit.  ...

Bull. Since when can simple shape shaders float
That has to either be a set of long plane objects arranged nicely and properly displaced, or some other object.

[Tangled-Universe]

Yes by disabling RTO you can displace objects as well.

Each segment of guard rail is then stitched together using correct spacing for x or z and then spacing variation disabled for both x and z and also disable random rotation Y.

If you then apply the same fractal which displaces the sss to the object maker of the guard rail population then they should match.
It's then a matter of offsetting the position to have it next to the road.

[Dune]

You're getting quite close, guys 

[FrankB]

You're getting quite close, guys 

We're good 

[FrankB]

I have never tried whether it's possible to distort a shader array, but that would be another way to set those little pillars at exact distances along the roadside.

[Tangled-Universe]

I have never tried whether it's possible to distort a shader array, but that would be another way to set those little pillars at exact distances along the roadside.

In my slim experience with shader arrays they were unstable if you use many shader array points / large arrays.

I still think it's 1 guard rail segment of, say, 2 metres stitched together as a population with 2m spacing and 0 spacing variation and blablabla like I said above