"Tek" <tek### [at] evilsuperbraincom> wrote:
> BTW is there any chance you could show us the source to those materials?
>
> I'd love to know if they're incredibly precisely based on reality or if they
> just look real because of the proximity pattern and how you've lit &
> "photographed" them.

I was planning on posting them in a test scene with an update to my proximity
pattern code. They are all reasonably simple. The bronze and stone ones were
already posted in 0.95 of my proximity macros I think.

As for the realism, my personal feeling is:

The lighting - it's based on a light probe, so is as real as a photograph. The
Light Dome, plus low quality, single bounce radiosity gives as good a result as
very high quality radiosity.

The textures - it's mainly the proximity pattern with some randomness (those
ones are just multi-scale bozo). The proximity pattern triggers your brains
shape recognition circuits, and the randomness makes sure the pattern doesn't
look too artificial. Making everything have even a tiny bit of reflection (even
if it is blurred to the point of "phong highlights") makes everything realistic
too.

The model - again, your brain is busy working out the complex shape, so you
don't really notice anything else as much in the scene. A viewers brain only has
finite cycles, so if you use them up they won't notice the rest of the scene's
imperfections.

The camera - probably doesn't make much difference, but making it based on a
35mm film camera and lens just ensures the field of view and depth of field
match a users expectations (based on all the real photography they've viewed).

Cheers,
Edouard.

Post a reply to this message