A Pollen of Convolvulaceae
This project is to reproduce pollen by using procedural displacement nodes from RenderMan. I wanted to learn how different the displacement system between RenderMan and Arnold is.
Side by Side Comparison
Reproduced Version
Origin
Inspiration and Reference Images
Technical Issues And Problems
As the reference image appears to be shaded on the left side, and the right side looks brighter. At first, I tried to achieve this appearance by using the fake_light node to shine a light on the right side of the model, but the result showed that the model basically looked way too bright overall, and it made the fake_light node unable to provide the desired result seen in the first picture. I decided to put a plane around the model to see some interaction between the pollen model and the plane. I found that If I put two objects close enough or with a proper distance, they would generate an artificial shadow in between the two resulting in less brightness in a close area. This can be seen in the second picture called the model with the plane.
Artificial Noise
From the video, there is so much fuzzy noise around the particle models' surface when they are moving. This is because I use the particle system called "Blobby" to add some deformations of the particle models when they are isolating. The polygons of the models are automatically generated and remain unsettled depending on the shape and size of each particle model. Moreover, all the generated polygons do not have textures, and this is a bit challenging when applying displacement on. I decided to put the depth of field to hide the noise in order to avoid any distractions even though it can still be seen from the video.
