Z4 Beta Testing By: Michael Angelo Hernandez

[yiannis t.]

again (after beta phase) the boat is cool!

[Mahlikus The Black]

Yiannis: Thank you =)

Been wanting to make a Jade material for years (even in C4D)! Took me 12 hours of tinkering and rendering (and tinkering and rendering and tinkering and rendering)...I finally came across something I'm happy with. Need to add veins and imperfections (with polypainting I suppose) but I feel the base material is ready.

[nezumi]

Lovely! Any chance making it public or it is rather your personal victory?

EEither way - great job!

[F i L]

that's an awesome alien concept! definitely hope you paint him

[sadicus]

looks like the time spent was worth it. That is a nice blend of greens, The sculpt is also very cool.

[hyper1]

Your absolutely right about the veining. Another feature that is frequently present are small irregular patches with color variance usually white. Of course you might be shooting for "imperial jade" that has no visible flaws, then you've already nailed it.
Great job,
Gary

[Mahlikus The Black]

Another Test. Try to perfect ta couple different colors and the cloudy/milky look. Still no painting yet. The patches of variation are several levels of material noise.

[Extra Dimensional]

Coming along nicely Mah. I'm preferential to the first version, I think I like that blueish coloring a little more. They're both beautiful materials though, good stuff. The effects from the new BPR and mat settings are addicting aren't they.

[Mahlikus The Black]

Coming along nicely Mah. I'm preferential to the first version, I think I like that blueish coloring a little more. They're both beautiful materials though, good stuff. The effects from the new BPR and mat settings are addicting aren't they.

I too like the bluish one a little better. Thing is, there are so many different types of jade that its hard to find one that just looks unmistakeably jade. First one is REALLY close I think. =|

BPR is wicked addictive alright. I highly recommend having create maps on with Mgray, that way you can have a Popup preview of just how much the shadows and ao are affecting the render. Helps tons when trying to figure out dark areas in an sss render.

[hyper1]

While everyone else prefers the first. I personally like everything you've done! Jade is one of those funny minerals who's characteristics vary so widely that it is truely up to the artist to sculpt what he/she believes the stone is saying. I've seen a lavender and grey cloud dragon that was totally in the rough to begin with. So just bring it on you'll know the color and translucency when your sculpture tells you .
Gary

[Mahlikus The Black]

While everyone else prefers the first. I personally like everything you've done! Jade is one of those funny minerals who's characteristics vary so widely that it is truely up to the artist to sculpt what he/she believes the stone is saying. I've seen a lavender and grey cloud dragon that was totally in the rough to begin with. So just bring it on you'll know the color and translucency when your sculpture tells you .
Gary

]


Exactly!

I thought on the matter for hours and came upon something interesting. Jade, like Da Vinci =) is like ZBrush, it is up to the artist to find his own truth with observation, functionality and above all, presence of beauty while maintaining simplicity and freedom of expression. Jade can be tricky but, if you know the stone (or crow-quill or app), then you know which qualities you prefer to aid in making your imagination into reality!

[Etcher]

That Jade Mahterial looks sweeeeeeet!!!!Look forward to see what you come up with next!

[Mahlikus The Black]

Thank you very much Geert!

Here is a wip test on incorporating a matcap shader in a channel of an sss Mat. More info to come!
~MAH~

[squidinc]

interesting, almost a pearl effect

[twf152]

Unfortunately, from what playing around I've done with SSS materials, I don't think you can actually have a matcap be the SSS effect. Because matcaps use predefined color and light information they don't accept the SSS info like they should.
You can use a matcap as the base material, or apply the fresnel effect to it; but for the actual SSS effect you need one of the basic materials, like one of the new fast shaders.