Credit card Hologram shader round 2

#1

Hi all,

I am in need of creating this again…

I need a shader for the holograms you usually find on a credit card (in this case its a master card debit card)
anyone have some solutions for me? preferably a mental ray shader.

#2

You can create it using a Gradient Ramp map in the diffuse slot. Just set ‘Gradient Type’ to ‘Normal’, this will allow you to change the color based on viewing angle.

You can add a similar gradient map in the reflection slot. You can then right-click on the flags>edit properties>add texture, to have different textures at different angles. Choose metal material so you get coloured effects.

You can of course use some composite maps to get more complex reflections.

#3

i am currently using the composite material and a few “material to shader” materials but run into a small issue…for some odd reason

the hologram is made up of 3 separate sections:
the bottom “base” area that has words on it.
the middle 2 circles area
and then the Debit word on top.

they all do different colours from each other depending on view angle.

at the moment for some reason even though i have the word on the top most map slot with a matte (same as the circles underneath) the circles for some reason are cutting out the word.

hmm… hard to explain this all, will try just upload a example scene

#4

think i may have figured what the issue is…

let me try break this down:
I have a mental ray material in its surface slot I have a composite material

layer 1 (bottom or base layer) is a “material to shader” with a arch&design.
in the arch and design I have a diffuse map and in the additional color slot I have a multicolour gradient.

then i have a map in the mask slot (black and white)

now… the issue i had was that i also had the mask map in the cut out slot of the arch&design material and i dont think composite likes that…

#5

As far as I remember, are you sure that mental ray supports composite material?

#6

Have you tried the gradient map technique?

Here’s a quick test:

You can download the 3ds max material here. Of course, the material should be tweaked to match the type of hologram you want to simulate.

#7

it does if you pipe it through a mental ray mat using the “material to shader” shader…

a technique that Master Jeff Patton showed me :smiley:

@Rockin : Yeah, that looks sweet… I managed to add a gradient with colours into the Extra colour slot on the material and it seems to work. will post a result for you tomorrow.

#8

How about you render the hologram in a seperate pass (with the same cam the final scene will use) and then use it as a texture?

#9

Heya Rockin
everytime i try to load your .mat, my max crashes :frowning:

any chance you could upload it in a .max scene with it just on a plane?

#10

hmm… it all works PERFECTLY when theres no lights in the scene (max defaults)
ass soon as i bring it into a scene thats setup with lights and HDRI, it doesnt work at all

#11

So is max crashing only when you use HDR+lights? Or what do you mean by “it doesnt work at all” ?

Are you using IBL by any chance?

#12

@Rockin : Max crashes when i try to load your .mat file only

If you look inthis .zip archive, you will see what i mean. The “card only” is what i am trying to achieve, but as soon as i bring it into my scene, it doesnt work the same.

#13

I took a look at your files. The reason you’re getting that inconsistency between them is because you’re using the additional color slot. For most ‘real’ materials, you shouldn’t use that, here’s why:

The additional color slot adds artificial light to your material. In the scene without lights, you created a map that adds the color you want to achieve the look you wanted. Then, in the other scene, the effect is gone, oh, no! Why? It’s because the other scene has a different light range. The stronger lights make your artificially added light insignificant.

But if this is true, you want the color to match the intensity of the lights you use, right? How?

The easiest way is to do it ‘mother nature’ way. The effect seen on the hologram is the result of light being reflected in an unusual way that causes dispersion. We can’t recreate that 100% in mr, but we can surely fake it having understood this.

We can do it by using the gradient ramp map as a reflection map. This way, the more light you shine on it, you get proportional ‘hologram effect’. For this particular shader, I prefer using a metal material. Metals have coloured reflections, with their reflection color derived from the color of the diffuse. So what I did in the end is just have a coloured diffuse, and activated the ‘metal material’ checkbox.

This was rendered with a daylight system (warning, bad gif compression, ruining some of the color :stuck_out_tongue: ):

EDIT: please note that only the shader in the center was changed :slight_smile:
I also put a gradient ramp to make the two mastercard balls go one over the other at different angles, but I kept it subtle.

Also, though I think it’s possible to use that material to shader technique, and there are cases where that makes a lot of sense, I personally prefer compositing the maps beforehand and having a single shader. Usually, it’s also faster.

And here you can download the max 2010 scene. I didn’t know what version you have, so I just picked the lowest denominator. You can take a look in the Slate ME, the shader tree is much clearer there.

#14

EDIT: Deleted, my statement was wrong upon further investigation:)

#15

hi Rockin
sorry to only get back to you now, things started to get a little hectic this side.

Anyway. looking at your shader setup. You are using a gradient in the diffuse slot with a few various colours in it for the colour and then setting it to metal material so it will use those colours for the reflection colour. Then you have the two “balls” one set in a overlay to differentiate the two when the light passes through them. each with a black and white gradient setup (not following what for) and a bump also setup with the composit map. why the bump?

so im sort of following what you did.

how would you boost the reflection colour though??

#16

Hi,
Yes, you got the shader right!

The bump is there just because it seemed to me that it gives a better sense of depth, I kept it as a very subtle effect. It’s not based on anything physical. It’s just a trick that subjectively, made the shader a bit more interesting :).

The gradient setup for the balls is so that one ball is always more visible than the other (alternating at different angles), creating more depth when animated.

To increase the colour in the reflections, you just go in the composite map used for the diffuse and change the opacity of the coloured gradient (layer 4) from 25% to 50% or whatever you like.

#17

Hello, if you are wanting to use mental ray shaders, a few come to mind-
BA Texture Oily Specular 2 - http://www.binaryalchemy.de/index_dev.htm
Diffraction - http://animus.brinkster.net/stuff/plg_diffraction/plg_diffraction.html
T2S Illumination - http://www.tek2shoot.com/knowledge-base/softimage-xsi/t2s-illumination.html
The max mi files can be found on maxplugins.de - http://www.maxplugins.de/mentalray.php?search=&sort=Author

Also, besides the shaders, since iridescence is from the interference of lighting, you could always try using a gradient ramp mapped to lighting or specular highlights. Some reference -
http://www.itp.uni-hannover.de/~zawischa/ITP/multibeam.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iridescence
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffraction_grating

#18

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