Wet Shader?

vonHobo

I may just be missing the obvious, but I was looking for a shader to give a leaf a wet look without changing the color or details in the leaf.

I found plenty of shaders for adding grime, dirt, dust, scratches, and other effects to objects, but the only wet shaders I can find are the ones for skin.

Does anyone know of a shader product that can give surface a wet look? It would come in handy for many things like vehicles, leaves, logs, etc.

Daventaki

For my image with Xaviar I had to add to the skin instead of a geoshell because it kept messing up. Might take a little work for you but its doable, let me find the links.

So I used this tutorial by Test Render.  In the description he provides a link to his maps, they are for g8f but you could take a section and make your own with an image editor (or look at them and make you own completely which would give you more control).  I had to tweak some of the settings.

Or you could follow this tutorial by shibashake.  Same principal applies just use your leaf instead of g8f.

 

vonHobo

Daventaki said:

For my image with Xaviar I had to add to the skin instead of a geoshell because it kept messing up. Might take a little work for you but its doable, let me find the links.

So I used this tutorial by Test Render.  In the description he provides a link to his maps, they are for g8f but you could take a section and make your own with an image editor (or look at them and make you own completely which would give you more control).  I had to tweak some of the settings.

Or you could follow this tutorial by shibashake.  Same principal applies just use your leaf instead of g8f.

 

Those are great tutorials, thank you.

I'm just a bit lazy, and was hoping there was a shader product in the DAZ Shop, that could do it with one click. :)

 

MelissaGT

Decals work on anything - 

https://www.daz3d.com/wetfx-decal--shader-kit

https://www.daz3d.com/iray-wetworx

I have all of KA's decal kits and I use them religiously. 

vonHobo

melissastjames said:

Decals work on anything - 

https://www.daz3d.com/wetfx-decal--shader-kit

https://www.daz3d.com/iray-wetworx

I have all of KA's decal kits and I use them religiously. 

 

Many, many thanks!!

I tried Iray Wetworx and applied a wearable decal to the leaf, then used the Wet Spot and Small Puddle materials and it created the effect I was looking for. 

I already own the WetFX Decal Shader Kit but I never use that one because I find it impossible to position the decal on the object. You have to get it just right or it doesn't show up. The wearable decal in Iray Wetworx is a lot easier to use.

 

 

Daventaki

Your welcome!  I was not aware of the two melissastjames posted, wishlisted!

Roman_K2

I'd like to see more examples... some of the promo renders are quite good and some appear a bit dry in some spots? And a few are in-between, eg. to the child's wrist looks like something dry is smeared on it, and the two things (skin and dry substance, smeared) looks like it is covered by a very thin sheet or glass or transparent PVC.

OTTOMH most leaf surfaces have water beading up on them. The science is complex... last I checked researchers who were interested in 3-D printing waterproof materials were studying snake scales under the electron microscope: apparently there is a discernible construction pattern to the keratin at that level, and it's done "x" way on purpose - the snake uses the resulting beaded drops of water for drinking.

Worse, leaves from a maple, oak, or fig tree kind of look like green PVC (say) and the water beads up on them, ah... so-so. If you look at this sample image the plant has evolved, at the microscopic level, a furry sort of texture which really makes the water bead up.

And if we zoom out on another sample image the rock surface looks nice and wet so I think the brain accepts that the grass-covered areas are going to be wet too... but if we were to zoom in further on the individual blades of grass I'm betting the water will appear as tiny beads.

vonHobo

Roman_K2 said:

I'd like to see more examples... some of the promo renders are quite good and some appear a bit dry in some spots? And a few are in-between, eg. to the child's wrist looks like something dry is smeared on it, and the two things (skin and dry substance, smeared) looks like it is covered by a very thin sheet or glass or transparent PVC.

OTTOMH most leaf surfaces have water beading up on them. The science is complex... last I checked researchers who were interested in 3-D printing waterproof materials were studying snake scales under the electron microscope: apparently there is a discernible construction pattern to the keratin at that level, and it's done "x" way on purpose - the snake uses the resulting beaded drops of water for drinking.

Worse, leaves from a maple, oak, or fig tree kind of look like green PVC (say) and the water beads up on them, ah... so-so. If you look at this sample image the plant has evolved, at the microscopic level, a furry sort of texture which really makes the water bead up.

And if we zoom out on another sample image the rock surface looks nice and wet so I think the brain accepts that the grass-covered areas are going to be wet too... but if we were to zoom in further on the individual blades of grass I'm betting the water will appear as tiny beads.

I agree with you. I don't think 3D renders will ever quite look as good as nature. 

But I have found that two products do a convincing enough job:

https://www.daz3d.com/iray-wetworx

https://www.daz3d.com/iray-foam-and-bubbles  - for soap suds, much easier to apply than the WetFX product for me

Really have not found any DAZ products to produce water beads on objects easily, or even a wet look on a car for instance. Can't believe there is no product to do this. I tried with WetWorx which worked on a leaf, but when I tried with a car it did not work.

 

 

 

 

fred9803

von Hobo said:

Really have not found any DAZ products to produce water beads on objects easily, or even a wet look on a car for instance. Can't believe there is no product to do this.

About 15 years ago on the Rendo forum I proposed that realsistic wet skin would be solved with a layer placed over the body to simulate water on the surface. I was wrong. Now we have geo-shells the problem still exists. There are some fine products out there that do a good job, but you'll have to fiddle with opacity settings and others to achieve good results. If you're interestsed there's a nice tutorial here.

3Diva

As for the water beading, Soto proves that it can be done, I wonder if we can talk him into doing a product that would work for other objects too. :D

*Edit - I've been kindly informed that Soto is a he, not a she, - so "him", not a "her" - sorry Soto. :) Post edited to fix that mistake.*

vonHobo

fred9803 said:

von Hobo said:

Really have not found any DAZ products to produce water beads on objects easily, or even a wet look on a car for instance. Can't believe there is no product to do this.

About 15 years ago on the Rendo forum I proposed that realsistic wet skin would be solved with a layer placed over the body to simulate water on the surface. I was wrong. Now we have geo-shells the problem still exists. There are some fine products out there that do a good job, but you'll have to fiddle with opacity settings and others to achieve good results. If you're interestsed there's a nice tutorial here.

There are a few wet skin geoshells that I own. I was really trying to find a product that is a shell for other things, like a car for instance. I have looked everywhere on DAZ Shop, but nothing is coming up.

This is probably the best wet skin geoshell if you are interested in a one-click setting: https://www.daz3d.com/short-wet-hair-for-genesis-8-male-s-and-female-s

It's a hair product mainly but the Wet Skin Geoshell that is included with this product is incredible.

• Wet Skin Geometry Shell Preset for Genesis 8 Male(s)
• Wet Skin Geometry Shell Preset for Genesis 8 Female(s)

vonHobo

Divamakeup said:

As for the water beading, Soto proves that it can be done, I wonder if we can talk her into doing a product that would work for other objects too. :D

Thanks. I really wish someone would create a product for other objects. I would be the first to buy it. :)

 

Roman_K2

Divamakeup said:

As for the water beading, Soto proves that it can be done...

Aha! Very cool-looking product by Soto. And the geoshell approach is interesting too, as shown in that tutorial.

However most "leaves" are made with a transparent plane, a leaf texture (eg. a picture of a leave) and a transparency map together with appropriate settings in the Surfaces pane. Limited geometry thus means no geoshell, or...? Just wondering.

And I didn't mean to imply that DAZ methods had to emulate nature perfectly... I just wanted to point out that nature can be tricky.

For what it's worth, here's a picture I made with my cell phone this morning, while watering a palm tree. Note how these particular leaves or fronds hold water in all kinds of ways, from beads to smears. And adjacent leaves (with different lighting; happens a lot in dense bush I suppose) can look waaaaay different.

(Edit) I imagine that the puddle(s) in Sickleyield's rigged water props can be exported to Hexagon and bent to fit the shape of a modelled leaf, and then sent back to DS for shading.

Roman_K2

Btw that is distilled water, sprayed on with a little artist's atomizer. Although I quickly saw that the image might be useful for this thread, I did not actually twig to how different all the surfaces were until I enlarged the original cell phone picture, on my computer!

3dOutlaw

Older post, but this is the one I found when looking for a quick method for wet skin.  So in case anyone finds the same....   Using @testrenders wet maps, with approval, I made a quick and dirty wet map freebie using geoshells.  Freebie site in my sig below.  Thanks to @testrender for his great maps and approval!

Serene Night

Mec4d in her PBS Shader set 2 includes a wet fabric shader.