Material Breakdown – Pearl

pearl_final

I will start a series of material breakdowns, where I show  step by step the principles of how I created the materials from the Austrian Imperial Crown.

This is by no means an absolute guide to the lux material system, but rather an insight into how I use the options given to me by lux.

Lets start with a pearl material.

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Luxrender observations – part II

This is the second part of my obervations on luxrender made during my last project.

Materials

This is the area where I spent most of my time in getting the blender scene transferred to lux. The material system is quite different from blender’s and I had to try various approaches to get the look I had in mind. This process is by far not finished, as I am currently just scraping at the surface. But some general findings can be shared.

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Luxrender observations – part I

As previously announced, here is my report on the use of luxrender during my project ‘The other day in the forest’.

This is more a description of the things noticed and done during the process than a real tutorial. I have come to recognize, that I still have a lot lot to learn and explore before I am entitled to do a real howto/tutorial.

Using the forest project, I will try to highlight some of the areas and give some general thoughts and examples.

At the time of this writing I a referring to the actual CVS version both of luxrender and luxblend, which will closely resemble the upcoming 0.6 release.

So lets start with some introductory statements.

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Linear Workflow in Blender

While working on my current project to explore the differences between luxrender and blender I came in touch with setting up a linear workflow.

Until now I knew what it was and never found it necessary to test or use it in one of my projects. The steps involved using it in blender especially under linux seemed too tedious.

As this project was aiming at photorealism, it was a good opportunity to actually try a linear workflow.

And I have to say I am a convert now. There won’t be any serious projects done without applying a linear workflow.

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Lightsaber Node setup

I started to put together a (video) tutorial for a complete lightsaber rotoscoping session. The basics – blend file with node setup for the lightsaber effect and a lightsaber mask – are ready, but right now my priority lies with my BWC entry (see wip thread at blenderartists).

Nonetheless, I decided to make the parts public, which I already have.

Download links:

As the BWC 2008 lasts until start of September don’t expect the complete tutorial before October 2008.