Roll of pallet wrap

[mattjgerard]

OK all you awesome people. I'm not even sure where to start on this one, I need a texture for a roll of saran wrap, basically. Right now I'm working with a model brought in from 3dsMax, where the roll is actually a spiral plane fitted with a bump and texture map that doesn't look very good.

So, I'm thnking that this would be an SSS solution, but I'm not sure if I should keep that geometry or repalce it with just a cylinder and hopefully get the layered transparent look from the SSS working. I've watched the SSS tutorial and am going to dive into that after I send this, but want to get some opinions on if I remake the spiral of the roll to add more layers emulating the layers of plastic wrap on the roll, which I can do, or just drop that idea and use a simple cylinder and use the texture/bump/SSS solution?

Thanks all!

[mattjgerard]

OK, already looking better, I'll keep posting stuff after lunch.

[mattjgerard]

And getting even closer. I think the texture is almost there, just need to split out the top for an anisotropic of similar look, get rid of the white bar in the reflection, and I need to have the roll not blow out to white on the right hand side. This image will most likely be used over a white background, so it needs a definite edge to it.

This is so much fun to work with and to see the progression as the day goes on, and my boss is even more thrilled with the look every time I send him and updated version.

[Will Gibbons]

Honestly, I personally try for the simplest solution first. I'd try plastic first with an image texture. Then, transparent plastic with textures. If not that, I'd try translucent or dielectric. If all that fails, then advanced or translucent advanced.

You should be able to cut the specularity by dropping the white value for specular. Good luck!

[mattjgerard]

And another version, this time with my favorite Lens Blur using the awesome depth map. I'm working on a photoshop action to process the exr for use in the alpha of the image, cause I'm gonna be using this on pretty much everything now.

So, this is close to the final, I'll be making more tweaks for my own self, but for project deadlines this is close. 

I really learned a ton about the plastic transparent materials, and the whole diffuse transmission and specular transmission, but they take a lot longer to render I've also learned to use region rendering, that speeds up viewing changes in complex materials.

[mattjgerard]

Honestly, I personally try for the simplest solution first. I'd try plastic first with an image texture. Then, transparent plastic with textures. If not that, I'd try translucent or dielectric. If all that fails, then advanced or translucent advanced.

You should be able to cut the specularity by dropping the white value for specular. Good luck!

I did try some image textures, but they weren't giving me the look I was going for. its hard to find a flat image for something curved like that too. I really like to stay procedural in myh textures, and it was fun to get into the MatGraph and learn more in there.

I ended up using a transparent plastic with brushed noise textures. So much of the appearance of these transparent and translucent materials depends on the HDRI being used, now that I've figured out the whole Specular and Diffuse transmission functions, I'm now off to figure out how the lighting changes everything about how those values interact together.

Coming from Cineam 4D and Octane, the learning curve is much easier to climb than learning Octane. Loving it!

[Will Gibbons]

That last one looks great!