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I'm rendering some soap products and need to create a couple of swirly, glittery viscous liquid materials.

Looking for some advice on how to achieve this or does anyone know of a material I can buy/obtain that fits the bill?

I'm thinking the marble shader might work somewhere in the mix?

A helping hand would be great!

Hi,

Essentially a fluid sim or static mesh relying on displacement for the surface deformations/details, coupled with a metallic material similar to a car paint. An relatively simple starting-point.

elsksa wrote:Hi,

Essentially a fluid sim or static mesh relying on displacement for the surface deformations/details, coupled with a metallic material similar to a car paint. An relatively simple starting-point.

Perhaps a swirly Normal map with the speckled car pain, plus a subtle Film Layer for some iridescence, then that whole thing mixed with a similar color material that has a bit of sub-surface scattering.

frankmci wrote: Perhaps a swirly Normal map with the speckled car pain, plus a subtle Film Layer for some iridescence, then that whole thing mixed with a similar color material that has a bit of sub-surface scattering.

Valid suggestions, although I wouldn't go down the SSS route.

One aspect to consider is the normal map (or bump) "flatness" as opposed to the actual geometry displacing a displacement map produces. Generating both textures could actually come handy when displacement is too heavy for the scene, depending on the situation, as I doubt rendering disp' will be problematic, these days.

elsksa wrote: Valid suggestions, although I wouldn't go down the SSS route.

One aspect to consider is the normal map (or bump) "flatness" as opposed to the actual geometry displacing a displacement map produces. Generating both textures could actually come handy when displacement is too heavy for the scene, depending on the situation, as I doubt rendering disp' will be problematic, these days.

I agree, I doubt displacement would be a significant rendering hit. I think in this case, though, since the surface really is "flat," or at least perfectly conforming to the interior surface of the bottle, displacement of sufficient depth to create a similar look would be apparent in the silhouette. Since this look is actually a result of tiny reflective particles in suspension, it behaves very much like a normal map. Depending on the liquid, some I've seen are pretty much 100% opaque, but others have some transparency/translucency. The SSS would be a bit of a render hit, but under certain lighting conditions, it could really sell the effect.

But there's more than one way of skinning a cat, as they say.
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