Need some advise. I would like to add sparkle to snow. For those of you in "snow country", you know how the snow sparkles at night or sometimes in the morning when it's really frosty?? Does anyone know how to create a material that might give that look or direct me to a tutorial on the subject?? Thanks a bunch! Sandy

Hi Sandy, you know, I've been trying to do what you ask for a while now, but have not had much luck. There really has GOT to be a way to do it with all those functions and filters, though. I just recently noticed and began messing with the Variable Highlights controls under the Highlights tab in the Material Editor in Vue 4. There are 2 filters and a function allotted to that particualr control, so I feel there should be a vast amount of effects possible. I can't remmember what version of Vue you are using, but if you have Vue 4, you might want to try that. I'll see if I can come up with something too, because I really need a sparkling snow mat for a few pics I'd like to do. In reality, it's the reflections that causes snow to sparkle (and to a lesser degree, highlights), but since we don't have any functions to control the reflections, I imagine that the Variable Highlights would be the next best thing.

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Ummmmm what about trying to mix materials as well as using the highlights? There is a starry material that might be of use when mixed...and you can bring up the highlights of that by using a multicoloured colour map thingy...I have forgotten the name of it. I know that i have changed the night stars from plain white to multi coloured stars using this different colour effect. None of this will make sense..but ill see if I can do it and try a visual approach rather than a verbal.

heyas; you guys are doing better than i am. i tried mixing a rainbow colour function with dots into the snow, and making the rainbow bits luminous, so they really glint. but getting the dots into clumps at the spots where highlights go is.... beyond me at this point. im using rainbow colours, because the sparkles i see are different colours. pink, green, yellow, etc.

I'm working it it bloodsong...and getting close ;) Laurie

Just a note, Vue 4 does have variable reflections, just click on it in the reflections tab, and I'm sure vue 2 and 3 had it too.

WHOAH! Zoon is right! How I missed THAT I'll never know! I guess because it's not available and faded-out when the reflections are zero... Thank you, Zoon.

MightyPete...that looks real nice, but it's just my pic from before with post you naughty boy. Laurie

On the little example the effect is maybe too strong...

Eric

Eric's looks like mine does after I fooled with it some more :). Since Eric's, mine, Mike's and Sacred's all look pretty much alike, I'd say that we are all on the right track ;). Seems to be the only way to make sparkles in the snow with Vue. I'm gonna try one more thing (a bitmap) and then I'm gonna hang it up. I've been working on it off and on all day ;). Laurie

heyas; post them materials there for us to um... experiment with; yeah, that's it ;) you guys are doing good, my sparkly snow experiments suck.

bloodsong...if you've downloaded the gift boxes that I posted in the other thread, then you already have the mat that I was working on, only modified a little. It's the same as the sparkly ribbon material ;o). Laurie

I got the snow finally but I can't upload my picture cause I don't have it with me but the idea was to make two terrains on on top of the other bottom one snow top one snow flakes real small real bright and render no top no shadows. Off set the terrains by just a tad . Use duplicate to get them the same shape....

Too bad cause I was going to say why not just use the Vue sparkeling snow material and load the picture....

Keep ya guys puzzled for awaile how it was done I figured but no my ISP had other ideas...

You all have been busy! I took advantage of your great suggestions and played around some to see what I could come up with. I've posted two images at: http://www.geocities.com/sandoppe/vue.html and would like to see what you think. I would have uploaded them here, but this thread is getting pretty image intensive as it is and these are not compressed :) The first image is a "combo" thing. I used Eric's instructions to create the ground cover for this one. Would be better on a little bumpier terrain, but I was focusing on the sparkle thing. The second image uses a transparent star map thingee as one of the materials, consequently this material only works on the terrain if you have snow on the ground! :) This one seems to work best close up. You need to use an opaque snow around objects (ie., the tree) The tree limbs were modified with a material I made from a little of this and a little of that. I call it my "area 51 tree limbs mat" since it uses the glow effect :) If anyone is interested in these materials, I will make them available. Sandy

Definitely getting the effect. Nice work, Sandy! :) Happy Holidays!

Thanks Varian. I think one of the materials that I modified and mixed in to create one of these, is your purple fabric material (the one with the sparkles). I'm not familiar enough with how to modify color maps to get exactly the right effect with that material alone. Plus the sparkles show up better if they are on a darker material. That second image works because of it's transparency against the pure white background. I had to seperate that terrain and the tree with another terrain covered with a more opaque snow, or you would have seen the tree roots! The glow can work on small areas and if the amount of glow is set very low........otherwise it just looks "radioactive" :) Anyway, those are my musings :) Oh and before I forget....Mighty Pete in his last post said: "why not just use the Vue sparkeling snow material and load the picture...." If there is such a thing as a "Vue sparkling snow material", I would like to know where it is! :) I didn't think there was any....which was the reason I raised the question here :) Sandy

No that was just a joke. I figured out how to make it with the two offset terrains that's all. I was just going to post the picture like there was such a default material to keep you all wondering.... Glad to hear you figured it out.

See...I was right. He IS a naughty boy ;o) Laurie

Not that picture. I actualy rendered one with my own tree.... But it's at home and I'm not....

Good work... Have a Merry Christmas!!!