SEM NON PHOTO REALISTIC SHADING
This is the final project from the Visual Effects Programming Models and Shaders course. During this project, we were told to recreate microscopic images of our choice with SEM shaders. I personally hit many blocks during this project, but I feel I did get quite a lot from it. For instance, I feel a lot more comfortable with the Maya node graph and have become more familiar with the nodes that are hidden within Maya. I feel this will really benefit me in the future.
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With this project, I unfortunately did not get where I wanted to. Due to time constraints I was unable to get the smooth result I wanted. I tried many different methods to smooth out the edges of the "netting" on the models, but never got a final result I was happy with. I tested many things such as the pxr threshold, voronoise, and fractal nodes as well as different osl codes that were meant to smooth intersections. Even with these different attempts, I had to call defeat. I do hope to go back and figure out the issue, but for now this is where the project stands. It is not my proudest project, but it has been one that taught me a lot.
FINAL RENDER
REFERENCE
PROCESS
Polyogn OSL code with displacement
Polyogn OSL code with displacement and worley shader
Polyogn OSL code with displacement and fractal shader
With these tests, I applied a polygon osl code onto a plane in order to see how it affected the area. Once I did this, I then added different combinations of shaders to the planes to try and achieve the smooth netting shape I was after.
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After these tests, I decided to bring the shader onto a sphere, since this is my primary shape for my models. When I did that, the shader acted a bit differently and I had to redo a bit of work to get a similar result.
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Once I got the "holes" in my model that I was happy with I then reapplied different attributes to the displacement of the sphere. This gave me interesting results, but not quite what I was looking for.
Polyogn OSL code with displacement and manifold 2D
After these many attempts, I reverted to my original shader. This consisted of an invert, ramp, and worley node as seen to the side. This combination, along with the SEM lighting osl shader, created the look that I am going with in the final render. This was the closest result I could get within the time I had. It gave me the basic shape I wanted, but nothing more.
SEM edge lighting:
Strength 1.000
Strength 2.000
Strength 3.000
Attempts with threshold added
Final render geometry only
Final render with color and displacement
Before
Photoshop touch up
After
