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Mirrorball in Ashtray
The main object is from the object library and was modified. The brightness of the mirrorball was adjusted by tuning the values for transparency, reflection and refraction. The pastel colours for the partly transparent and partly reflecting ground plane with a techno bump were arrived at by using white fog and black haze. Lit by my OilyRainbow HDRI (artwork by David Brinnen) at the default orientation, quality 64, intensity 22, effect 80 at linear 100. Shadows are set to 100% and the soft option engaged. Rendered premium with 16 rays and soft shadows, which took only 4 hours.
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Comments 9
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Wow! I love it Horo. The colors are surperb. It almost reminds me of carnival glass. Truely beautiful. 5/5
Thanks for looking at it so swiftly, Rashad. I do care a lot of what you say. I did forget to mention that the example with transparency rendered in 134 seconds and the one without in 14, a difference of almost 10-fold.
After looking at your e-mail I can see your point very clearly. I think it is as you say, the transparency helps spell out the model shape. Interesting find, especially because it did not become a render nightmare. If the scene had been more complex with lots of structures set with transparency.
David - I see what you mean. Interesting observation that will have to be followed up by experiments. Rashad - The transparency on the ground plain will help to get some light bleeding up from below and thus also softening the shadows. As for transparency on the sphere, I think it helps absorbing surplus light. In fact, refraction has no effect. I'm going to send you test renders by email of just the sphere and it will become obvious to you. The effect/result came as a surprise to me, too. All - thanks for your kind comments. I'm still gathering experience what IBL can do.
Ever been to Australia? I was there many years ago and I no longer remember how to spell it but there is a very beautiful seashell called pauwa, or something like it. This piece reminds me of an ashtray made with that material. Far out as it seems there are actually real objects that have this appearance. I agree with all above comments, nice work. I am curious about the transparency, I'm not certain I understand what transparency has to do with this render. Perhaps you might clarify for me, unless it's clear and I'm just an idiot. I guess I'm wondering if it is actually necessary to engage transparency for this render? Either way it was a fast render so no issues there.
. I likes it, its original. The way colors flow off of the object gives a nice mood.
Typo! lol I meant 'oil on water'. LOL
I love the coloring! The inside of the ash tray looks like oir on water. Great gradient effect! The swirl effect on the outside faces is pretty cool too. :-)
The overall effect is quite pleasingly retro. Although, I don't feel that reflective materials get the best from HDR lighting in terms of their geometry, when the background is reflected in one or two metalic items the effect is convincing, but if the scene is largely reflective the light casting properties of the IBL are somewhat redundant since most of the scene will end up being comprised of reflection rather than diffuse. In that, reflection is, in my view, harder to interpret as a 3D shape than something "described" by shadows. That is not to say that there is a right and wrong way to go about this, just that I feel your scene demonstrates this in that the inner geometry around the sphere is difficult to assess becaues of the reflectiveness of the material whereas, I imagine, if it were a matt mat lit with the HDR it would make more "3D" sense. Nice piece, interesting effects and I particularly like the way the bumpy ground has responded to the light.