The Melt - V3

Tangled-Universe · February 02, 2009, 02:39:23 PM

Quote from: old_blaggard on February 02, 2009, 02:35:37 PM
I would actually consider using a water shader for the snow with low reflectivity and very high volume settings. We're currently sitting in about three feet of snow here, and I thought about it a little and the larger swaths are very smooth and opaque, but after melting for a while it gets some jagged edges and some of the little bits of ice become clear as water, especially on the edges.

I don't really agree with the three feet

It's supposed to look like one foot, maybe 1,5 feet at most. Anyway, not important. You're right about the appearance of the large swath (learned a new word today

) and the melting parts..I'll see what I can do to mask them.
The watershader idea is good, I'll start with that as soon as I have the basic shape of the snow patch good.

Cyber-Angel · February 02, 2009, 05:01:51 PM

This is vary nice, the only thing that is missing that I can see is melt water between the stony landscape and the melt interface of the snow which is what you'd see in such situations in real life as is shown in the photograph (Sorry best I could find) on this page http://www.warmzone.com/SnowMelting/blueheat-works.asp except that there would be more of it.

Regards to you.

Cyber-Angel

old_blaggard · February 02, 2009, 08:05:00 PM

Quote from: Tangled-Universe on February 02, 2009, 02:39:23 PM
I don't really agree with the three feet

Sorry, I was unclear: I meant to say that my town is currently three feet deep in snow in the real world - I agree that it looks like you've got a foot or so here. However, the consistency of the snow would be the same regardless, so good luck on your tests!

Tangled-Universe · February 03, 2009, 02:01:02 AM

Quote from: old_blaggard on February 02, 2009, 08:05:00 PM
Quote from: Tangled-Universe on February 02, 2009, 02:39:23 PM
I don't really agree with the three feet
Sorry, I was unclear: I meant to say that my town is currently three feet deep in snow in the real world - I agree that it looks like you've got a foot or so here. However, the consistency of the snow would be the same regardless, so good luck on your tests!

Ah ok, I see

lol

Well, here's the second version!

Martin

Seth · February 03, 2009, 02:20:07 AM

snow is white, the blue or pink colour that can be seen sometimes is the result of "reflectivity" of the atmosphere... I am not sure adding blue colours to the shader of the snow is a good idea... but i think working more on reflectivity 'or water shader" as calico suggested might be a good idea.
the shape and texture looks good but it doesn't look like snow to me Martin... it looks like some ice-cream thing or something... ^^

FrankB · February 03, 2009, 02:34:01 AM

agree with Seth, you've probably been carried away with experimenting late at night I suppose ;-)

Other than the colors, this is really looking good. Excellent shapes, I find it believable! And it's a nice composition too, with the wood in the background.

This looks more natural in my eyes (although I must admit that I got almost snow blind trying to re-balance colors in this):

Saurav · February 03, 2009, 03:09:09 AM

The snow shape is looking great now. The colours, specular highlights and details on the snow need to be modified/added for realism.

Please check the photo as an example of what I mean.

Regards,
Saurav

Tangled-Universe · February 03, 2009, 03:16:42 AM

Thanks guys!

I did some slight postwork in 2 minutes or so because I had to go to work.
Yours looks better indeed Frank.

Seth:
I don't really agree with you that the snow looks like ice-cream or so.
When I smoothend the surface below the snow the snow became smooth as well as Frank predicted. The problem was that I had to start all over again finding the right displacement intersection settings.

Maybe I should render it at higher res and settings so you'll see that there are also many small bumpy details which look very realistic. I over-estimated the rendertime for this (just 3 hours @ 0.9, AA 8 and GI 1/1) so I didn't render it bigger overnight.
The snow already has quite a blue/gray color (intensity is 0.64!).

Regarding the watershader: I've tried many many ways to get the watershader applied properly to this surface with very limited succes. I had a density shader connected to the water shader and cranked up its density to about 500 which gave the snow a more solid look. But the transparency is lost and if I increase it I have to increase the density shader as well and then I lose the transparency....on and on and on...Also, the edges become VERY ugly.

I'll see what I can do about some of the issues tonight or tomorrow.
Please keep posting suggestions.

Tangled-Universe · February 03, 2009, 03:18:13 AM

Quote from: Saurav on February 03, 2009, 03:09:09 AM
The snow shape is looking great now. The colours, specular highlights and details on the snow need to be modified/added for realism.

Please check the photo as an example of what I mean.

Regards,
Saurav

Thanks Saurav, that's an excellent reference picture!
Do you have any specific suggestions on how to do this?
I can send you the tgd if you'd like to see all the details.

Martin

Seth · February 03, 2009, 03:23:34 AM

the "ice-cream" look I was talking about is not from the shape or displacement but from the colour and lack of reflectivity/transluency ^^

Saurav · February 03, 2009, 05:13:57 AM

Martin I would like to have a look at the TGD. I'll see if I can help you out with the specular highlights as well, I remember a while ago trying to create something similar to your snow surface.

Tangled-Universe · February 03, 2009, 05:37:40 AM

Thanks!
It will be on its way tonight (about 11 hours from now)

moodflow · February 03, 2009, 07:04:28 PM

This is fantastic!

Tangled-Universe · February 05, 2009, 01:56:21 AM

How about this?

darthvader · February 05, 2009, 02:02:06 AM

TU, I'm sure that you just took a picture of some snow