Lee Griggs Refractive Portrait?

Sorry if this is in wrong category. Has anyone seen or attempted a Blenderized solution for Lee Griggs’ refractive portraits? They’re so uncanny, and way beyond my Blender pay grade. Even anything similar from Blender? Or thoughts about how to go about it? In noob-ish language?

Here they are on his site: https://www.leegriggs.com/refractive-portraits-53

And here’s his Arnold tutorial on how he does it: https://arnold-rendering.com/2015/12/16/refractive-portrait/

Did have some luck emulating his landscapes via a great tut by Justin Pinkney (I think) here: http://www.cutsquash.com/2014/08/abstract-landscapes-blender/

Here’s my Griggscape: https://gablemadeit.com/cgi-illustration

Should be as simple as placing an object behind a plane - then apply the refraction shader to the plane, with a suitable texture (probably voronoi or some variation of it) driving the IOR of the refraction shader.

It’s important to use the refraction shader and not the glass shader, as you want to avoid reflections off the plane.

Indeed.

moony: Ah, bingo. Noob that I am, I didn’t even realize there WAS a refraction shader. The idea of separating refraction from reflection, transmission, etc., is novel to me. Did get some initial results and will keep fiddling. Thanks so much for your coaching! If anyone can recommend a really good conceptual overview of shaders in general, beyond the 2.8 manual, please recommend. I see the shader trees that people like Alexandrov put together and my head starts spinning even knowing where to start. Thanks again for the help.

burnin: Sweet! Willing to divulge how you achieved the Suzanne textural dimensionality? Displacement, I assume?

You could start with this thread

Yup.
Anyways, always best - here’s the scene file: RefractivePortrait_exercise2-8.blend (588.8 KB)

Image used is from the “Aqueous Electreau” series (no. 0) by Mark Mawson

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Looks like tissue addon could add to this as well. with noise and others.

great works all.

burnin: thank-you SO much for sharing the .blend. Seeing your node setup is highly instructive (noob, as I confessed…). The RGB to BW split to roughness and displacement, while using the original RGB for color–that teaches me good things. Good on ya, mate.