Diamonds Gemstones Textures or Techniques
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What product or shader technique gives the most brilliant and realistic effect for gemstones like diamonds, rubys, emeralds, etc.? Either in DAZ Studio or Poser. Is there a gemstone material that's great? Or does some glass shader work best?
Thanks!
Comments
I like these from AllenArt
https://sharecg.com/v/85120/gallery/21/DAZ-Studio/AllenArt-Iray-Jewelry-Shaders
and if you look at her other freebies there are very good ones.
The default diamond shader that comes with DS is excellent. Just turn off smoothing in the surface settings.
DAZ UberiRay also has Jade too.
So, I did a little experiment.... I would suggest Daz Studio iray since you have a nice free physically correct shader for diamond already. Next, use a model that has crisp sharp edges with the right angles for a properly cut gem to get the right refraction; there are products in the store that are beautiful gems but a great place for free ones is http://www.3dlapidary.com/HTML/Collections.htm. Next, use a nice HDR background that has something to reflect, loads of light (i would suggest some point lights), and turn the Caustic sampler on. I did a very quick render and did not do many of the suggestions but the gem itself isn't bad....
I should mention that Carrara does the best diamonds (shape included, diamond shader included, and it does amazing caustics) and you could composite the gem in by rendering with a transparent background...
I'd also recommend the Allen Arts Iray Jewelry shaders. Another good set is the Metal and gemstones.
https://www.daz3d.com/metal-and-gemstones
Take your pick. All good
https://www.daz3d.com/ubersimple-gems-and-glass-merchant-resource
https://www.daz3d.com/gemology-iray-shaders
https://www.daz3d.com/gemology-iray-shaders-volume-ii
https://www.daz3d.com/gemology-iray-shaders-volume-iii
https://www.daz3d.com/metal-and-gemstones
That's great! Thank you. I'll see if I can figure out how to try both the DAZ Studio and Carrara methods. The free 3D gemstone site you gave me the link for is INCREDIBLE!
I believe that Carrara has a sample scene with a diamond... if your character is just going to hold it, you don’t even need to worry about caustics. Use the default diamond shader, shine a spotlight on it, use a hdri, and maybe add a glint in postwork. Yep, that site is awesome; we have a relative who is a jeweler so I have become very educated about the accurate angles of gem shapes.
3D lapidary has been around for as long as I can remember doing 3D (which is a very long time....lol). Great stuff there ;) These days I grab some gem cutting diagrams and model them myself, but back in the day I used ALL 3D Lapidary's gems.
Laurie
Rendering gems in Poser (firefly) is like pulling your own teeth, it's slooooooow. Even 3Delight does it way better and much faster, and that's saying a lot. DS Iray/Cararra/Bryce are your best bets, probably Blender too but I've not used it.
Allen Arts gem shaders are great, also a lot of my jewelry sets come with gem shaders, the ones that are stand alone jewelry, not the little things I toss in with characters.