Have been thinking about making makro snow shot for some time. GPU, Render time 30 min.
*update. Render times do not longer apply. (Just cranked up the samples and leaved render for night ;), 1080p still could render in 30-40min though)
This is so absolutely awesome!!! CG beats real-life macro photography Did you create the snow by modeling a small portion and then using the particle system? And is the light coming from a Blackbody emitter?
I used Hair particles from simple hand placed geometry (monkeys), which then got hided (masked). I use HDRI for lighting. You know, most proven method. :eyebrowlift:
Guys, thanks to everyone for warm comments. I’m really glad you liked it!
So, here is little in depth breakdown.
First stage is of course is modeling a twig. Fine details were added with displace modifier. It was really handy, coz, it was late night and i was really lazy sculpting all that details.
Then i modelled a ice pieces and water drops. I just masked some regions on duplicate of the branch, extruded and smoothed them. Quick randomizing with sculpt grab brush
Placed monkeys on branch just in the shape i wanted the snow to be. I had no problems with intersections, In fact i used them in some places to make snow more dense. So its just randomly placed suzanne models.
Added subsurf and then big distortions with displace modifier to monkeys. Here i used really big and random distortions.
Added hair particles to monkeys. Had some time playing with settings. So, in short, i wanted really random directions for hairs. And hair strand width is main controller of scale of snow. But, more hair width is, less light is passing into the snow, so the darker the snow. So with increasing hair width i also had to play with shaders to fix the snow darkness.
Added mask modifier to monkeys to hide main geometry and leave hair system intact.
Lighted the scene with HDRI (sunset). In fact it was the first stage, because, before doing everything i described above i did same with small test geometry and found right lighting and hair settings first, and then i did it on the bigger, final scene.
P.S. placing monkeys on the branch was funniest part.