Translucent stone

[florent-alexandre]

Hi Everyone,

Here is my first post on the forum! I've been trying to render some kind of translucent stone, with a milky feeling to it (inspiration image attached). I guess the "translucent" material is the way to go, but i cannot get the same kind of effect. I suspect my lighting for not being appropriate, I attached a  low res render of my scene with the translucent material I have so far. Let me know if you have any input

Thank you! Looking forward to share with the community

[Will Gibbons]

Beautiful reference image. The 2nd one will require a true volumetric material (KeyShot 7 Cloudy Plastic) to get that effect with the other part sticking out of the cloudy material. The first image can be improved by having a strong light source (can be a physical light or HDRI. Use a small, bright pin in the HDRI editor or an outdoor HDRI. To get the translucent effect you're looking for, you need to increase translucency slider up quite a bit. Don't be afraid to push it into the hundreds if needed. It will depend on the scale of your geometry.

Here's an image of a translucent material I did in KS6 to show it's doable.

[florent-alexandre]

Hi

Thanks for your advice! I think the result looks way better (I also add a couple of maps). I tried the cloudy plastic approach without success so far, I will try to spend more time on it so I can match a little bit more the reference image.

[Will Gibbons]

Very nice!

[DriesV]

Looks really good!
That texture makes it very interesting.

Unless you need the semi-transparency for objects protruding or embedded in the surface, I think Translucent is the way to go.

Dries

[DriesV]

Btw, here is a quick example using Cloudy Plastic.

Dries

[DriesV]

And here is a clear example of a use case where Cloudy Plastic will be the best material for the job.
In this image I embedded the blue stone inside the larger white one. Due to the transparent properties of Cloudy Plastic, the embedded stone shows through the white material. This effect is impossible to achieve with the Translucent materials.

Dries

[florent-alexandre]

Amazing, thanks for the detailed feedback and tips!