Contents page

Index

WATER DROPS


   * Subject: 33300 lines of drivvel from Scott...
   * Date: Tue, 1 Feb 1994 09:45:54 -0600 (CST) [46]
   * From: kirvan@SSESCO.com

Here's how I've done this - first, though, an explanation of why water drops won't work that well as a texture: The refraction effects that water drops have on the surface of a pop can is dependant on the actual thickness of the drop. A texture doesn't actually add any thickness or bumps with real depth to a surface, it only changes the way the surface looks, giving the impression of bumpiness.

Ok, how to do it: take your pop can, copy and paste it in the same spot, and scale one up just a tiny bit bigger than the other. Brush map the can's label onto the smaller of the two cans (also set up the can's spec/hard). The bigger of the two cans is going to be the water droplets. Make that can totally transparent, set the index of refraction to that of water (1.5 I think - I don't have space in my head for things I can look up when I need them), and give it a white specularity and hardness of about 200 to 255. Add DinoSkin to the larger can, set the scaling to make very small drops, reduce the values in the noise functions so the bumps won't be kinked up so much, put a negative number in one of the color boxes (to turn off the coloring), and set the dispersion to a small number (like .1, maybe even less) to turn off most of the bumps. You may want to experiment with the DinoSkin parameters on a non-transparent can to get the size / distribution you want. To finish off the look, make (actually build objects) several small water drops and stick them on the can. The drops you build should be the bigger water droplets on your pop can. That way the errors in the DinoSkin refraction are not seen because your eye is attracted to the bigger drops. You can also animate the bigger drops for more effect.

                         -> Return to Alphabet <-

Back to Ian Smith's HomePage