Candle Material

Hey :slight_smile:
I am trying to set up a scene with a candle as the main light source.
The flame is made with the smoke simulator (doesn´t look too good but it´s ok^^) and the material of it is emission (color-ramp aso.)mixed with “nothing” , i used a attribute node with the flame attribute to be the factor
so far everything worked more or less like i wished
but now i came to the material of the candle. obviously i tried to get the wax effect with SSS and glossy first- but it never looked as it should -> the emission (material) of the flame wasn´t strong enough to shine “through” the wax, and the sorrounding area wasn´t lighten enough by it too -so i added a (point)-lamp which i moved into the flame
now the light coming from the flame(+lamp) was strong enought to lighten the sorrounding.
but it still didn´t brighten up the candle wax as i wished

can someone recommend me settings/nodes for a wax material ? (volume materials is an option too :slight_smile: )
if wished i can upload the candle as it looks now, to give u an impression of what i mean ! :slight_smile:

you can always upload file at pastall
if SSS does not give a nice transp candle mat try with volume mat in cycles
show us some pic so we can see how it looks

happy cl

http://www11.pic-upload.de/thumb/12.07.14/vhqv98t7p2.png(click)

What have you got the “scale” factor in the SSS node set to?

Increasing it will make the light travel further through the wax material.

Lots of popups on your link. And it asked me to update my flash player, which I know for a fact is the morst recent. Not sure I trust your host. Especially suspicious when it asked me if I was a boy or a girl. I have added “http://www.pic-upload.de/view-23870764/bilderrahmen-kerze-fliegen3.png.html” To my “no fly zone”…

@moony -i know…but do you know what i can adjust with the radius ?
@place57 thank you for your helpful comment -you are the first who has problems with this website so i think u should maybe check your addons, toolbars etc… ? (maybe you should install an ad-blocker :wink: )
i would have directly uploaded it to blenderartist but it failed a few times

@place57 is right - the host is full of popups and crap. Use dropbox, pasteall or another legitimate site, and I would recommend that no one click on the link. There are plenty of places you can put an image without all the junk. The problem is not place57’s pop up settings, it’s the site being built to mess with people’s computers.

you can upload here files and pic up to about 3 MB for file and 2 for pic I think
so should be easy to do

happy bl

^^ alright
so i will upload it somewhere else in future (with adblockers i have no problems with this site)
uploading them here doesn´t work always even if the size is ok -a bad thing is that u can´t see the uploading progress, which sometimes leads me to the assumption that there is no progress…
no tips for a wax material ?^^

try this one simple SSS


cand1.blend (99.9 KB)

happy bl

thx :slight_smile: not perfect but not worse than the one i already have :stuck_out_tongue:
volume materials don´t have a big effect if i use surface materials too… so i will do something simple :slight_smile:

If you are trying to use volume materials - you need to ensure that whatever surface material you use is transparent (or semi transparent).

Candles that are burning, and hot and closer to liquid are going to have alot more sss, and alot higher of a scale on that sss. SSS allows some light to scater throughout the object effectively penetrating it. The higher the scale the greater chances light with pass through the object and come out the other side. Therefore the thickness of your object will have great effect on how the sss looks.

If the candle is not burning it will be more diffuse. This is more or less what I am saying:


Thx, Good explanation :wink:
i just don’t really undestand is, what exactly the Radius does
i guess the 3 Panels are R G B but i am Not sure bout that or which effects i can reach with it/what it’s useful for

They tweak the colour of the scattered light - e.g. setting the three values to 1.00, 0.00, 0.00 makes the sub surface scatter take on a red tint.

alright :slight_smile:
is it a effect which should imitate a material/effect that appears in “reality/nature” too, or ist it just to adjust/tune the look of the “virtual” SSS.material?

It is to imitate nature (or at least approximate it) - many materials will scatter light at different wavelengths to a greater or lesser extent. In some materials this will become evident by the fact that the scattered light takes on a coloured hue.

Since cycles isnt a spectral renderer - so you have to simulate such effects in RGB colour space - hence the RGB sliders.

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it will change the object colors but can it change other objects color around ?
have not seen it yet
and there might be another SSS coming with the uber shader later on
mind u it is available in a thread - have to find it !

happy bl

aahh…the opal, right :slight_smile: a gem i know , interesting examples! :stuck_out_tongue:
whats the “uber shader” O.o ? a self-made material-node(-group) ?
by the way- is there a build to render SSS and Volume materials with the GPU?

Here are a few test renders using the radius value.

The first render they are at default (i.e. all 1.00). The second render the values are 1.00, 0.75, 0.75. As you can see - the bulk material colour is largely unaffected - but the scattered light is tinted.



You can also perform some interesting effects. By boosting the RGB above 1 - you can actually boost the scattered light to make it appear to be emitting/glowing scattered light (this render has values of 10.0, 0.75, 0.75). One practical example I can think of for this is if you have ever shone a laser pen at a candle - you get this kind of effect (even down to the speckling).