Preserved Topic: Absenthe and Ice

There's a thread next door in the PS forum on how to create ice.
I thought I would give it a go in Strata and post it here instead of in the PS thread.
It was much more difficult to create it in a 3d app than I thought and to make it look convincing. The glass itself is really facetted , I know but that is not a concern at this point.

How would one go about giving a watery wet effect to the ice or adding some ripples or swirls to the Absenthe?

Anyhow...suggestions?

cheers.

wow that's sweet!

Not bad!
What looks odd to me is the refraction of the cubes seem off. Try making them a little less transparent too, and give them a bump map, they should pick up some more specular highlights.

The spec highlights is what will make them look wet, as will a little big of reflection, but it should be subtle
When I lived in Florida, the ice cubes looked like this.

Yellow But you can see the hot spots is what make it look wet. Maybe you need to change your lighting? Like adding another light or two that only affect specular?


For the ripples I have 2 ideas using bump maps.


The top one I used photoshop to make a ringed circular gradient and applied it as a bump to the liquid. I used photoshop bcause I don't know if your program can do a ripple procedural.

If you want the liquid to hug the ice cubes, what you can do is clear out the scene except the ice cubes.
Move the camers directly above the cubes and pointed down, so you have a nice overhead shot of them.
Clear out the surfaces of the cubes and make them white, 100% luminous then add black fog to the scene.
Adjust the fog so it starts with the top most cube and ends near where the liquid like would be.
You can eyeball this.
You should have a nice depth map looking image. Bring it into photoshop and make it a little less contrast. blur it a bit, and you have a custom bump map for your ice cubes.

I'm sure there is an easier way but this was more fun

-Electro www.badsun.com
[img]

Thanks for the comments and suggestions.

I agree the refraction just isn't right.
I tried a few adjustments with the refraction settings but they didn't seem to change a whole lot. Looks like I will have to put a lot more time into this to get it right.
Strata doesn't seem to have all the tools and power of the high end 3d apps so will have to work with what I have.

Electro, I really appreciate the time you took to put these mini tutes together
They should help me as soon as I can find the time to experiment.
Your ice looks awesome!

BTW your new site looks great too.
Any bites yet on the job hunt?

thanks again
-kromaZ

Ok, you are using the free version of strata, right? I went ahead and downloaded it because I don't have anything better to do today
It's tough to get a nice hot spec on a surface in strata, then again I've never used it before so I'm not familiar with it. This is what I came up with, and the settings I used for the ice.
http://www.badsun.com/images/Strata_Ice.jpg

http://www.badsun.com/images/Strata_Icesettings.gif

I did a little post work in photoshop to bring the levels up to normal and add a little bloom.

And here is the bump I made and used, though it seems to be a little too sharp for strata, even though I blurred it.
http://www.badsun.com/images/bump.jpg


This is a great program for being free
Thanks for the comments on the site. No bites yet on a job but I have done a little freelance PC tech stuff, so I'm not hurting yet

-Electro www.badsun.com
Bah the formatting is messing up looks messy

[This message has been edited by Electro (edited 04-19-2001).]

On this test I reduced the transparency and upped the spec to 100%
but the highlights still look washed out.
I'm going to try adding that bump map too to see if it improves.

Rendering in Radiosity mode might help but there aren't enough hours in the day for that

Yeah...bump map would make it more realistic. It is also a tad bit too transparent. You may also want to make them less "cubic" . How many times have you seen a perfectly square ice cube? Chip some pieces off, make some cubes smaller than others..etc

Hope this helps!

--now inc

www.now-incorporated.com