Hypodermic needle, vials

[Johnny]

Render of a portfolio piece I'm working on. To come: labels for the vials, and CC markings for the hypo.

Any thoughts or critiques most welcome.

Thanks!

J

http://www.bluemitten.com/hypo.jpg

[Tom Wood]

Nice. I'd put some clear colored liquids in both vials and the syringe, with one vial having less liquid as the same color in the syringe. Better yet, one blue vial, one near empty red vial and a little red in the syringe, and then a mirror in the background. :cool: (Or was it the other way around?)

TW

[adrian]

Oh God YUK!!! I hate needles.... but you've modelled it very well.

I agree about the liquid; would make the image look more interesting.

Adrian.

[etobiason]

I think it looks cool. I'm wondering if you have enough bounces in your ray trace...it seems to me that the bit of vial I can see through the front vial looks black.

[Johnny]

Originally posted by etobiason
I think it looks cool. I'm wondering if you have enough bounces in your ray trace...it seems to me that the bit of vial I can see through the front vial looks black.


I agree...trying to work that out. I have RT reflections turned on; the chrome really pops and does a good job of reflecting a poly with an image mapped to it.

but with RT relflections turned on, and recursions at a higher value, the render times shoot thru the roof..

Maybe I ought to do the glass at high recursions, RT reflections off, then at lower recursions with RT reflections, and do a little Photoshop magic?

J

[etobiason]

Try turning on RT reflections, refraction and transparency. Now that I look at it again, it seems refraction is turned off...I hear you on render times, but the default of 16 bounces is overkill. With your system specs, if you dial that down to 5 or 6 you should have reasonable render times...

[emperorchuck]

Yeah, the number of bounces needs tweaking...
Also, that hypo is nice and all, but how do you know how much liquid you have in it? I've never seen a hypo that didn't have little tick marks or something to show how many cc's of fluid you have...
Otherwise, it's a very pretty setup. Clean and bright.

[etobiason]

Yeah! Tick marks! And for the bottles too.

[Johnny]

Originally posted by etobiason
Yeah! Tick marks! And for the bottles too.

tick marks, liquid, and labels for the vials are on the schedule for today....

thank you for the comments..I hope to have something new posted soon.

J

[glassefx]

Its strange how pictures of syrenges and medical supplies make people feel...

I think it would look a little more "scary" if the plunger was glass instead of the "new-world" plastic which you have... Something even creepier about those old civil war type hypos...

You know, I think the colors would look better with colors other than primaries... Maybe some weird orangish stuff.

Also, you need to get the surface settings just right for the liquids... I'd try to convey a sense of viscosity to some level... Something other than just colored liquid... Maybe one being a soultion (where the two elements don't mix all the way) like tiny chunks of "pepper" floating in one, probably the one thats been "abused."

LOL!

killer work and a great concept that never gets old.

keep posting updates.
peace

[Zarathustra]

They still make glass syringes?

[etobiason]

Who are they? I don't know anything. Why am I talking to you?

heh.

Seriously, I think the syringe is fine as plastic.

[Zarathustra]

It doesn't look like plastic to me. It looks like glass with no refraction.

[Johnny]

OK..here's another one.

changed some materials and added finger rings...this hypo is definitely old school...the plastic ones I found online while looking for reference were pretty boring; this glass and metal design seems more interesting and more scarey.

Can't express this in technical explanation, but this file seems busted, or jinxed somehow: I get a LOT of crashes, I can't render with caustics (LW quits) and I don't know what the vertical artifacts on the vial label are; they don't appear in earlier test renders and they aren't in the .tga file...

Johnny

http://www.bluemitten.com/seven.jpg

[etobiason]

Are you using the forward-facing glass/rear-facing air technique? It kinda looks like you are, but the forward facing poly's are sub-patched and the rear aren't....or you've merged the points on them and it's affecting the geometry....

I like the glass and metal...if the syringe is old-school though, why not make the bottle old-school as well? There's lots of cool antique medicine bottles.

[Johnny]

Yeah..I'm going to old-schoolify the bottle, its label and that type. it'll be more interesting visually, and more cohesive thematically.

I am using the flipped air polys method for the glass and *pretty* sure I have them sub-D'd as well..I'll double check.

right now, I'm zeroing in to find out which part of the syringe object is causing me all of these quits.

J

[Johnny]

Originally posted by etobiason
Are you using the forward-facing glass/rear-facing air technique? It kinda looks like you are, but the forward facing poly's are sub-patched and the rear aren't....or you've merged the points on them and it's affecting the geometry....


you mean on the penicillin vial? those vertical lines?

I'll have to take a closer look at the geometries there...

J

[shaol]

what about some numbers for measuring on the needle

[glassefx]

Try a fresh scene and re-load everything fresh and re-apply the settings... A bear I know...

or you could run it through Polytrans and it should tell you whats up. If it loads A-ok then save it out as something different but not to different (like an old lw format) and then back to the exsisting format...

this may help re-parse the file correctly and get you past all this crap?

worth a try though...

[Johnny]

is Polytrans something that works with Mac, or is it a PC-only tool?

I *think* that my crashing problems are attributable to my use of anisotrophy in that metal shader...the metal (chrome) looks good/ok, but a little too perfect, and the aniso was giving it just enough believability to make it nice...

so, I can have either caustics or aniso...sigh...

hoping to find another way to add some realism to my metal which plays nicely with caustics...

off to the dentist right now...ought to have something new to post today.

J

[glassefx]

I am not sure if there is a MAC version or not...

It's what I would call the de-facto 3d file conversion app. It has some nice features/filters when sucking files through its logic...


peace...

[glassefx]

http://www.photostogo.com/content/topsearches/Hypodermic%20Needle.asp

http://www.fotosearch.com/BDX118/bxp27096/

http://www.acclaimimages.com/_gallery/_pages/0015-0401-0312-0901.html

http://www.ni-cor.com/drugpictures.html

peace

[Johnny]

those are some nice reference links..thank you!

J

[Johnny]

Here is a latest render...still need to work out issues with mapping marks onto the syringe..

I'm leaning to either black marks which I guess in the real world would be fired on during manufacturing, OR the potentially more interesting marks of raised glass! woo-hoo!

as you can see, the liquid polys are giving me fits...I have no idea what color penicillin is, so I gave it a slightly golden tint.

The "chrome" looks too much like hematite to me, but using brdf AND caustics was giving me quits..

so, issues to solve, but getting there.

http://www.bluemitten.com/vialpen.jpg

[glassefx]

Keep'a chuggin' Johnny... The weekend is here and you'll have time to polish'er'up a bit...

lookin' good... They "bake" epoxy on glass some times for gradiations...

(I) think the glass for grads would look ok but prob. not worth the time hit as far as modeling and rendering a bit considering the way I think it will look... I think the black grads would look tougher...

Either way you'll enjoy the whole "3d-Process"... Do'em both and compare...

peace

[Johnny]

OK..sorry for the delay. Had some stuff come up.
I dealt with the liquid issue, as far as putting liquid into vile and syringe, but the metal thing is kicking me around a bit, still..

for me, this chrome looks WAY too perfect and computerish. Got good results using BRDF anisotrophic, but for this scene, caustics and BRDF do NOT get along well, and crash upon rendering. I don't want to get anything like corrosion or rust, but some kind of surface texture and patina would be good.

as always, thanks for taking time to offer comments and suggestions.

Johnny

http://www.bluemitten.com/nuhypo.jpg

[glassefx]

Since I do metals... puts bread on my table...

Stainless will oxidize leaving a very thin whitiish film over effected areas. Kinda looks like dried toothpaste a bit. You'll get darker greys in there also... It will oxidize where its been touched, and a tad-bit on the flat plaines if you will...

It ironic that I do metals as mentioned and still I have a heck of a time surfacing them... Everytime! Their top on the list of surfacing relates to lighting... Which is true of everything but metals are really flaky.

peace.

[mattclary]

Johnny, what makes reflective metals look good, is giving them something to reflect.

This is a recent endeavor that satisfied me quite a bit. I used a HDR image of St. Peter's cathedral for my background (and to do the majority of the lighting).

http://vbulletin.newtek.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=26754

[riki]

Looks great, nice progression. Actually I was working on a plastic disposable syringe today for a client job, nice to see a different take.

[Johnny]

OK..playing with reflection maps for the chrome, and still need to work on this aspect, but at least this chrome *resembles* real metal, and not hematite or plasti-metal... At least this new metal surface makes the whole image look a bit more real..like those items are actually in a place..

I think I'm getting some kind of wierd reflection behavior that almost makes the plunger in the syringe appear to continue thru the liquid..which it doesn't in fact do..

Plus, caustics need tweaking; to get interesting caustics washes out the vial label..I've been futzing with that label's diffuse intensity to compensate.

J

http://www.bluemitten.com/hypox.jpg

[Johnny]

Since I do metals... puts bread on my table...

Stainless will oxidize leaving a very thin whitiish film over effected areas. Kinda looks like dried toothpaste a bit. You'll get darker greys in there also... It will oxidize where its been touched, and a tad-bit on the flat plaines if you will..



thanks, glassefx...do you have any examples of this? I've been looking over my forks and knives for this whitish stuff...does the stainless have to be decades old and exposed to the elements for this to happen?

Johnny

[mattclary]

OK, looks better, but what's up with the reflection of the plunger running down the length of the syringe?

[Johnny]

OK, looks better, but what's up with the reflection of the plunger running down the length of the syringe?

nasty, isn't it?

It has to do with the position of my reflection object; a LW object with a map on it..

I found this worked better than just loading the image in the Environment tab, but I get this strange reflection that makes is look like a funny continuation of the syringe plunger. Maybe re-positioning the camera or reflecting object would help...

Johnny

[mattclary]

Johnny, go here and get yourself some HDR light probes. They work great for lighting and reflections. Just go to backdrop options and load them with Image World.

http://www.debevec.org/Probes/

[Johnny]

I'll do that!

thanks, matt

J

[Johnny]

those light probes sure do make a difference! I'm still fiddling around, but hope to have something to post soon..

Still wrangling that strange reflection in the glass that looks like a continuation of that plunger shaft.

J

[mattclary]

That they do!

[Johnny]

OK...somewhat different camera angle. you can now see more clearly that that "shaft reflection" is more like a horizon line from the image being reflected, or something like that..I think..

J

http://www.bluemitten.com/hypozz.jpg

[Johnny]

Another camera angle yet...I need to kill whatever's making that "shaft reflection."

J

http://www.bluemitten.com/hypozzz.jpg

[mattclary]

I wouldn't sweat it, it looks a lot better, but here are two options if you want:

1. Set a gradient on the reflection channel for incident angle on the glass. At 90 degrees, reflection should be minimal, at low angles approaching 0, reflection should be higher.

2. Alter the surface on the plunger so it does not look so much like the reflection.

[glassefx]

Your welcome - about the oxidation info...

About your silverware, stop looking, unless its older than Methuselah then your not gonna see what I speak of... Too much nickel and other alloys in the common ware to act like pure stainless. What i'd do on a pich is to vist a BETTER counter-top manufacturing store (they are here so I am sure they are there!) and find a sample chip of some of the true stainless surfacing material, actually get two... Place one outisde in the elements for about 10 days and then document the changes. The other leave inside. Be sure to handle the outdoor one like crazy to get the acids from your skin on it.

You also notice LOTS of other great sample chips for texturing... :)

BUT, dont let them know your just some 3d freak on a mission to aquire surface samples... Take your woman and throw the "We're remodeling our kitchen" pitch to them. To get the stainless act like your going for the commercial or industrial feel for the kitchen.

:)

peace