Irridium Sheen

[Deimos]

There have been a lot of people asking recently what it looks like. I've been looking for pics and anything that shows the effect off. The only problem is that no picture does the effect justice. To get the full glory of it you have to see it panning past.

 

The pic below is from a tv show that had some brilliant panning shots that really showed off the effect to the max. For anyone in the uk the show was called Dream machines on Channel 5.

 

I've remembered another place where there'll be a good effect in motion. The film Swordfish. The TVR that John Travolta drives has the same paint job. I don't know how easy it'll be to pick out but it's there. Another place is in Sony's driving game Gran Turismo 3. There are cars in it that have the effect and you can see it in action.

 

I'm going to end this as a request, if anyone else has or can find pics that show this off to the max please post them.

[Guest drewid]

should be reasnoably easy to fake with an old fashioned environment map I think.

 

I'll try it at work next week (got a couple of days off).

[mamutas]

What are you talking about? What is this 'iridium sheen'?

[Deimos]

Irridium sheen is an effect where the colour changes depending on how the light hits it. In the case of the above picture the car is actually grey (the main colour) but as you see when the light bends off at different angles the colour reflected is in a different part of the spectrum. Looking at the pic above around the headlight is a prime example of this.

 

The effect on the car is actually a paint effect where tiny particle of different coloured metallic paint that land on the surface at differing angles so when it dries these particles reflect the light differently. Sort of in a similar way a raindrop distorts 'white' light to make a rainbow.

 

It's called an irridium sheen because irridium is one of the metals used in the paint to get the effect. It's also used in things like expensive sunglasses, motorcycle fairing wind deflectors and recently (I think as it has a similar effect) car windshields.

 

When used in sunglasses it's used in much tinier amounts but the effect is still there. Here's an example using a pair of my 'shades' that I know has it in.

 

The effect we're looking to get is so that it looks like the craft/tech is grey from certain angles but when moved around you get the gorgeous 'alien' look that you see above.

 

Still pictures really don't do the effect any justice. It really is a gorgeous effect, that works incredibly well on curved surfaces.

[Deimos]

http://www.oakley.com/mad_science/lens_transmission/

These guys have probably the best sets of lenses in the world. The link is to the transmission lengths of each of their lens types and as it shows in the descriptions Iridium (sorry I've been spellingit wrong ) is in there.

[GreatGold]

Hey -

 

I LOVE IT! If we can get it to work...I'm all for its use. Mainly for craft, perhaps armor, and some weapons. If its used to much it looses its effect I think. Can we really get it though?

 

Some quick thoughts though.

1.) How does this "color scheme" work in conjuction with damage-effects? I assume well, but it would be great if we could see an example.

2.) Does the whole reflexion issue cause a huge hardware requirement jump?

3.) Just a quick thing about the armors texture being user modifiable...but I placed the idea in the Armor thread, no reason to double post it (in its entirerty).

 

Over all, I do really like the affect! Very cool, sorta retro but at the same time very futurish. This should without a doubt be implemented in some form!

 

I can't wait to see some examples surface of what an object rendered and then textured with this scheme actually looks like!!

 

Gold

[Anglachel]

Drat, missed Deimos by a few minutes. Here is the pic you asked for, hope it works.

[Anglachel]

Found some sites that might lead to something.

Forum Question

CD Shader

Phoenix Tools

[Maverick]

i have a preliminary version of the effect available for use with 3d studio; I don't know if you can import the texture to other programs but here it is anyway. If you can modify it to get a better result, I'm all for it.

[Deimos]

Thanks Anglachel. I'll have a play using traditional methods and see if I can come up with what I mean.

[Maverick]

sorry, here's the file.

iridium_sheen.zip

[Cubik]

Yep, enviroment mapping is the way to go.

[Guest drewid]

There's two ways of doing the iridium thing

 

I'm pretty sure we can do the sheen the old fashioned way (envmap) or the neew fangled way of using a DX9 shader.

 

Greatgold-

 

Damage is going to have to be applied in different ways depending on the object.

Spaceships/buildings could have blocks blown out of them and damaged versions dropped in. so that's not a problem.

 

Armour will possibly have a base texture for the whole object, which is a little wasteful but makes it easy to damage by writing damage straight onto the base texture. envmapped sheen would still go over the damage, not good I think.

 

Another way is to have damage decals which are polys that sit on the surface of the object. You have to fiddle with z buffer read/write to get this to go, but it's good for small damage like bulletholes, or big flat areas like fire damage on walls. That would work well with the sheen cos you could subtract the damage which would kill the highlight under it.

 

Envmaps are virtually free from a speed and hardware point of view. Shaders are code, so there is a speed hit. this would vary with the hardware that was running it. It also means that someone has to write that shader, either in code or in a Maya/Max tool.

 

If we end up doing it the first way then you could replace the base texture map and the envmap easily enough. (for modding).

 

If we do the second way then its a lot harder to mod.

 

 

I'd vote for envmapping. It's got to be the fastest and cheapest way of getting that effect.

[Guest drewid]

Hey Mav can u post that object as a .3ds I've got an old version of Max.

 

The thumb looks nice tho

[Crix Dorius]

Irridium Sheen...

 

Hmmmm...

 

Do you mean something like this ?

 

http://people.freenet.de/crixdorius2/Iridium.gif

Edited May 22, 2003 by Crix Dorius

[Breunor]

I tried those settings for the sheen in Milkshape on the small scout model, flat shaded, and it looks very nice. Can't put an animated gif up here, as it washes the colors out and loses the effect. You get all the facets in the craft, and if the verts are put in the right spots, you'll get a nice sheen most of the time. I'll set it up and see if I can get a decent still of it.

[Breunor]

Here are some angles, and that is not the model for the alien small scout btw.

[Guest drewid]

Hey crix. What does your delta fighter (the triangular one) look like with the sheen on it??

[Crix Dorius]

Sure...

 

hmmmm...

 

 

RAINBOW-WARRIOR !!!

[red knight]

Buddy that rocks...

 

Greetings

Red Knight

[mamutas]

sweet!

[Guest Jim69]

Oh, I think that the irridium sheen is called two-tone over in england.

 

Are u gonna use it for the alien and hybrid craft? If so, then u r gonna need it for all items that use the items that are alien or hybrid, guns etc, which I think would look buff. The triangular craft is lookin good btw

[Anglachel]

Dang Crix, that is great.

 

This is an iridescence or thin film affect, similar to soap bubbles or oil spilled on water. It seems to have the same look as the iridium sheen. The colors are based on light refractions. I am trying out a new renderer. I have some control over how much color shows and wacky the pattern is. I will start working on trying to get it applied to part of the plasma weapon in the morning. If that works, I will apply it to rest and start to figure out how to use the glow affect for the tubes.

Edited May 23, 2003 by Anglachel

[Anglachel]

The lighting affect illuminates everything from every direction I belive, it is not a point light or spot light, so I believe that is why there is color all around it.

Edited May 23, 2003 by Anglachel

[Guest drewid]

Oh Crix

 

Das soooooo pweeety

 

Stick it in a box and ship it.

 

oh yeah

:happybanana:

 

Breunor and Micah. Can we nail that image into the concepts pages please.

[Deimos]

Crix, it almost looks sexy I agree with Drewid we should get this pic up on xenocide's website.

 

Anglachel, by Jove I think you've got it spot on old boy. That is almost perfect. If possible can you apply it to a more 'bumpy' model to see if we get the mainly grey with elelments of colour around it?

 

You are correct in that it is very much like 'soap bubbles' or spilt oil on water. That's exactly what the effect should look like.

 

Jim, yup two tone is the nickname for it over here it's also called pearlescent in some places. The plan is that this iridium look is alien alloy. So it'd be used for anything that is based on it.

Edited May 23, 2003 by Deimos

[Anglachel]

This is what happens when I apply a bumby surface to it. I do not know if I can get rid of the bright spots that where created, I am still learning how to operate this thing. I modifyed one of the iridescence factors to make it brighter so the colors stand out more.

Edited May 23, 2003 by Anglachel

[GreatGold]

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHH BABY!

 

I like that "bumpy-surface" texture a lot. What would be VERY cool is if, since the armor is smooth to begin with you have the orginal sheen. But when damaged (and bumpy) you get this result to some degree...

 

Gold

[Breunor]

Anglachel's last pic might look cool as the canopy/glass areas of the alien ships, with the other sheen for the hull. I've posted Crix's shot for the Firestorm design, could you send me the 3ds via email so I can post that and link it as well?

[Anglachel]

Finally figured out how to apply it to an imported mesh. Well, what do you guys think? It is not a complete rendering, just applied the iridescence to the main body. Should I play with the values to make it look different or what? It wasn't quite what I expected.

Edited May 24, 2003 by Anglachel

[[[Micah]]]

Very nice sheens on display here. I've copied the pics to my "in the works" concept art pages, Drew.

[Guest drewid]

cool. thanks Micah

[Deimos]

Concept of what the sheen should look like. Remember that this is only hand drawn in and isn't rendered but it's that sort of effect you guys should be looking to achieve. If anyone else wants to send a pic of something alien, as long as it's the a similar tone of grey to Anglachel's plasma rifle I'll have a go at visually describing the effect.

[Breunor]

Anglachel, you might be able to achieve something closer to Deimos' concept by stretching the texture more? Milkshape's texture mapper shows the texture with the polys on top, so I guess you'd shrink the polys down. I expect you know this, I'm just trying to convey the idea in case your app does it differently.

[Guest drewid]

I like those hoses as well. kinda sticky rubber looks good against the light surface and will show up well when it's tiny in game.

 

Thats a thought actually. We should bear that in mind and give each gun a couple of big features to be make it unique when its rendered tiny and a couple of features to tie a weapon family together.

 

So for the plasmas the glowing packs and the spikes tie them together as a family and also make them different from the heavy lasers.

 

ermmm. Did I say this already?

[Breunor]

Anglachel had mentioned every plasma would have the spikes for channeling the plasma, the rifle has 2, heavy has 3. I like the idea of the plasma clips being fed via tube in each weapon as well, those 2 features would tie them all together plenty. Add the sheen, and you could do what you want with the other features, they'll still look like they belong together.

[Deimos]

Looks like we're getting close to some resolution on this one

 

I know we should shift to the guns thread but I'll reply this one here. Could we try the plasma tech without the traditional pistol grip/trigger assembly? I was watching the fifth element and the ZF-1 gun looks similar in design to anglachel's plasma rifle. That had an open section at the back where the operator put their hand and the trigger controls were on the inside. It would go a long way to explain why plasma weapons need researching before use.

 

The other thing we need in the plasma weapons is clips. Anglachel can you incorporate a removable clip system into the design please.Thanks. Oh and lets shift the gun discussion back to the gun thread

[demich]

so the HWP's plasma beam should have four channeling spikes?

[Breunor]

If you want, but we could say the heavy barrel of the turret contains the channeling mechanics internally as well. It might look cool to have the barrel split into 4 sections coming out though. Like half of the barrel is comprised of those protrusions, and they're closer together in proportion to the barrel. The other half would be the mixing chamber where the elerium is mixed with the catalyst to make the plasma. Just a thought.

[Breunor]

A funny coincidence, I was getting some info for the background story, and happened upon this picture. If the aliens were originally evolved from creatures of the deep, this sheen would make good sense, ties it together nicely. In the deep these sheens either enhance the the light waves or nullify them for mating/protection. Perhaps it's the sheen that helps give the UFO it's invisibility to normal radar?

[Anglachel]

so the HWP's plasma beam should have four channeling spikes?

My plan was to give the rifle 3 and the heavy 4. I was not assigned the HWP plasma and have not given that much thought.

[Anglachel]

The other thing we need in the plasma weapons is clips. Anglachel can you incorporate a removable clip system into the design please.Thanks. Oh and lets shift the gun discussion back to the gun thread

Read my original concept for the design in the model concepts thread. One of the round things on the side was the clip.

[Breunor]

I would think the hwp version of the plasma would have 6 spikes on it, I'll PM Demich in case he misses this post. Unlikely

[Anglachel]

Haven't seen 5th element in quite a while, will need to dig out the tape somewhere.

 

On the spikes, I was planning to change the design for them on the heavy instead of the same just to mix things up a bit. And I think everyone wants 2 on the rifle since no one gets it right, they all think the one with three is the heavy even though I have posted it is the rifle.

 

How is the sheen going to be applied in the battlescape or is it? Anything I find on the sheen says it is a material or affect that the renderer does and not an actuall pic. Is a renderer going to be intergrated in Xenocide?

[Deimos]

We're looking into how it'll be applied. It'll either be an environment map or done with shaders. The problem with a static texture is that the sheen colours don't move around when the alien alloy is moved or we would use a static texture. For the purposes of displaying the model concepts just apply a mid grey flat material to it. Here's the reason why http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20020903...3/london_01.htm

 

We'll worry about the effect when we've got something to test it with. It'll need somewhere to rendered so it can be moved around in realtime to show the effect in action so don't worry about it for now.

 

If you want to show a textured render, leave the area that is supposed to have the iridium sheen on it as the mid grey texture.

[GreatGold]

Deimos -

 

That link you posted is for a members-only page. Could you cut andpaste the relevant text or pics here?

 

Gold

[Deimos]

Not sure that I can. Copyright and all that. Anyway Gamasutra is a great resource. Sign up it's free.

[Guest Jim69]

I'm sure that they won't sue ya if u give them the credit for the quote

[demich]

ok here is the question: how to tell the game engine where it should add iridium shine effect and where it shouldn't? Should i mark these areas on texture file with , for exxample, green color? And then in game this color will be replaced by iridium?

[Breunor]

Shouldn't the vetexes on the model determine the angles? So you just apply the reflective properties to the texture, and the hardware will calculate the rest?