So… I have a short story to tell before I get started on this.
I saw this on blendernation.com, and thought that I HAD to try that. It looked like an AWESOME diamond shader!
So I made a simple ring, put some gems in it, put simple colored glass shaders on the gems, a dispersion shader on the diamond, and was pleased by the result.
Rather than just hitting the “like” button on the photo post, my aunt sent me an email instructing me to show this to a jeweler she knew here in town. Which means I have about a week, maybe two, before my dad asks me what the jeweler guy said.
Problem is, as of wednesday, that ring was all I had for jewelry, and it was hardly finished.
I modified the glass shader I used for the diamond, the important stuff (ior, rough, color, dispersion) is exposed to allow for easy tweaking for a variety of gems. I applied it to the other gems. Looks a little nicer. It’s over here.
I ended up making a couple of other pieces. They’re in my photobucket album over here.
Any and all thoughts would be awesome. Thanks in advance.
A simpler node set-up might be possible. I’d also increase the difference in IOR values so you get more colors refracting. I forget where I originally saw this node setup (I didn’t invent it), but you can see my version here: Diamond Render Sorry for the external link… too lazy to post the pics here at the moment.
I had actually gotten a license for Octane last night. I set up materials for both cycles and Octane, then rendered them out.
kthornbloom, thanks for the tip, but that’s the node set up that I saw on blendernation.com. The reason why mine’s a bit more complex is an attempt to make it work for other gems with fewer variables to change.
Looking good, faceted diamonds look the way they do not just because of the refractive index of the material but the angles that the stone is cut at.
Gemstones are generally designed so that light entering them from the viewing side (the crown) is internally reflected by facets on its back side (the pavilion) and directed to exit the gem through facets on the crown to the eye of the viewer. If a significant amount of the light entering the gem from the crown ‘leaks’ out by being refracted rather than reflected by the pavilion facets, the brightness of the gem suffers (you can see thru the gem) The angle at which light is internally reflected rather than refracted is known as the critical angle. This angle varies for different materials and is a function of their refractive indices.
The lower the refractive index the higher the critical angle, Diamonds R.I is high, this makes for a shallow pavilion that is easy to fit into jewelry and that is why with lower R.I materials the cutter will often cut a “fish-eye” to both maximize return on material and to be able to fit the stone into a ring without it being huge.
Here is a list of refractive indexes with the critical angles of gemmy materials. http://www.gemcutter.com/angles.htm
And here is the classic round brilliant pattern, when you’re cutting a stone you cut the pavilion first, the first facets are at the critical angle of the material. http://www.usfacetersguild.org/gem_designs/srb_variations/
There is a whole world of Gems and Gem Cutting (lapidary) that is not for jewelry, thing like Salt, or Fluorite: perfect cleavage in six directions…very challenging indeed, of all the stones, diamonds (white ones) are the most boring, they are as common as dirt. Find me a 2 carat bixbite…go on I dares yah.
Later
Here’s the ring with the current materials. It’s a little better than the first one. It’s actually rendered a while back, I just didn’t post it in the initial post.
A version of that ring rendered with Octane.
Here’s a watch! Rendered in cycles. All procedural textures, except for the wood.
Here’s a pearl earring. I went ahead and took a couple cues from danilius’ thread. I’m about 90% happy with it. More than with the other models so far.
I want to get two more pieces together before I give the other models another going over on materials and lighting.
Lack of sleep is sapping my motivation, though. Any suggestions on what the next model should be?
Excellent stuff, and far better work on the stones, metal and lighting as well! One major point though (come on, you knew it was coming) is that diamonds are always set with the bottom of the stone exposed. So change the settings to rings instead of cones, and then you’re done, apart from the pearl, for which you need to find out a way to fake SSS which was covered somewhere in a Cycles thread- someone please help out with finding it, because I had no luck.
Dan, believe it or not, I didn’t know the issue with the rings vs. sockets was coming. I’m not all that experienced with jewelry, as in I’ve never paid attention to it at all.
I went googling for SSS in cycles and octane.
For cycles, folks have suggested using the compositor to bring in a SSS pass from BI. I didn’t have much success with that. I also found a thread somewhere on here that used translucent and transparent nodes along with a solidify modifier to create SSS, but it took a long time to render, and I wasn’t happy with the results.
This is a render from Octane, using it’s version of scattering. It works, I s’pose. I kind of like the cycles render a bit better, though. I’m not used to using octane just yet.
Much better, but the pearl looks like a billiard ball now. Also, the rings holding the diamonds should be round, not faceted, because making round rings is easy by hand, making faceted ones is a nightmare.
Been a bit since I got on this project. My dad hasn’t mentioned anything about it just yet, so I haven’t hit the deadline. I think I’m just going to spend a couple of hours cleaning up the renders, and call it good.
