Shading Teeth

[PauHana]

That looks sweet! Nice job...it's great to see people push themselves on a regular basis, like you do.

[dobermunk]

Cool!
I'm a fan of toon-teeth, but I think you're right about cg teeth. Never really noticed that about the lack of self-shadow.
Any walk-through on the shader flow?

[chikega]

Not a problem, dobermunk. I've refined the shader flow a bit. This is a more simplified version than previous versions. This is pretty straight forward ... so if there are any questions ... don't hesitate to ask! :)

http://www.3ddmd.com/images/Messiah/Teethflow_joke.jpg

[Adam-Han]

LoL! Straight forward is not the first thing that jumps to mind, but the results speak for themselves. Nice work http://cgtalk.com/images/smilies/thumbsup.gif So much cool stuff popping up these last couple of days I'm getting inspired left and right!

[dobermunk]

I follow most parts where there's a simple in/out node. Where I am less certain is at nodes like the "undercoat". You bring in a noise ( a procedural I assume) and plug that into specular (I follow) but what does the "u" do. Isn't that a gradient value?

[chikega]

Well, I've got to let the cat out of the bag. The above shader is the "Swirly Ball" shader. :D I thought some of you might have recognized it - hehe.

[tjnyc]

Nice shader Gary. It might also work as a jellybean shader as well.http://www.cgtalk.com/images/icons/icon13.gif


Cheers,

[chikega]

Now that you say that - it would work rather well for a jelly bean shader. :)

Here's an image of what teeth would look like if lit from behind - in this case, I've just turned the object into an Emission object. I thought it looked kinda cool. I could see making a very realistic light bulb after viewing this image. :)

http://www.3ddmd.com/images/Messiah/TeethGlow.jpg

[dobermunk]

Need ....
.... time.

So cool!

[AlexK]

Well, I've got to let the cat out of the bag. The above shader is the "Swirly Ball" shader. :D I thought some of you might have recognized it - hehe.
Er Gary, do you mean by this, that you created the teeth out of the Swirly Ball shader or that you tricked us and don't give your secret away? :twisted:

[chikega]

Yes, it was a practical joke. By way of peoples' responses or lack thereof, I guess most didn't get my sense of humour. :D

The shader is actually very simple and uses messiah's original SSS shader. The scene is very dependent on the light intensity and placement. I didn't post the "secret" earlier b/c it was still a work in progress - but, my time is limited. So, here it is, as is. The main thing I learned was that you can get a quite translucent object without the value being blown out by reducing the Diffusion concurrently. For example, if the Translucency is .1 then a Diffusion of .9 seems appropriate - this would give a more opaque object with slight translucency. And conversly, if the Translucency is up to .9, then a Diffusion setting of .1 would give the appearance of a very translucent object - almost liquid or Jello like in appearance. In this particular project file, a Translucency of .9 and a Diffusion of .365 seemed to give the best results ... so far. :)

TeethShaderTestScene (http://www.3ddmd.com/download/TeethShadeTest.mpj)

[AlexK]

Hihi, you know what's the funny part? :D
I build a tooth shader today, that is based on your Swirly Ball screenshot. And guess what, with the exception of a few node that made no sense (what led me to my question ;) ) it worked quite nice. :banghead:

[chikega]

How cool is that! Haha - that's a really nice looking ivory tooth. Would you mind posting the project file? :)

[AlexK]

Here you go. You might want to insert an image into the TextureMap node of the environment to get a better reflection.

[AlexK]

Hey Gary,
I found the time to take a look at your teeth shader and almost woke the whole house with a VERY loud cry of frustration. ;)
Damn, I could have had that much simpler. :banghead:
Great job nonetheless Gary. :thumbsup:

[chikega]

Hey AlexK,
I found the time to take a look at your teeth shader and almost woke up my cat with a VERY small wimper of frustration. ;)
Damn, I could have had that much more COMPLEX. :banghead:
Hehe. :thumbsup:

[AlexK]

Now you are just showing off. :wip:

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