I am trying to achieve a certain pearlescent paint type in Blender where the paint changes colour based on light angle not based on view angle.
I searched for a while and can’t find something that works in Cycles. I tried connecting the “Glossy” and “Reflection” parts of the “Light Path” node to the factor of the “Colour Ramp” but no luck.
I read somewhere that compositing might be the only option but it was a very old thread. Figured I would ask because I am not sure if this is a skill issue on my end or if it’s just not possible currently.
It is from 2016 but apparently, Cycles has a limitation where you cannot have a Fresnel-like effect but based on the light angle.
Is there a best place to suggest/ask for Blender features to be considered for implementation?
Blender has come a long way since 2016 so does Cycles I guess.
Maybe there’s a way for this to be added.
I think you are misunderstanding how light and diffuse reflections work. Diffuse surface will scatter light in many directions, so if you have some diffuse component or some component with roughness, that view angle does sort of represent the direction of light. What you likely have in the reference is color depending on intensity of light. I mean, it’s still not very helpful, because it’s still impossible with Cycles, but knowing that you can make the shader in EEVEE and know that what you are after is basically Shader to RGB node for Cycles which does not exist yet.
@MartinZ Yeah definitely diffuse/roughness increase makes the light scatter more. When saying “angle” I was thinking if there’s a way to make the colour change based on some sort of vector where the most perpendicular part facing the light source will be white and then have an angle value from which the blue colour starts and at what angle it fades to the base white to the material.
That’s just how I imagine it though. I don’t have enough knowledge of how the nodes work so I could be wrong for sure.
I agree that colour change based on light intensity is a better way to put it.
Thanks for helping and if I use Eevee I will definitely use this node setup. If only Eevee and Cycle nodes were interchangeable.
@oo_1942 Thanks for that! It looks pretty much like the reference. Even the subtle red/pink reflections are there. I didn’t think of using subsurface scattering. I will experiment to see if I can add the flakes and increase the radius of the blue falloff but it’s pretty much there.
@RSEhlers That’s an accurate-looking pearl material. Thanks!
ing!
