Once I exported the maps, I rendered it using the mia_material_x shader in Mental Ray (rather than Arnold due to which computer I have access to) and I think it looks alright for my initial attempt. However, the white scratches didn't show up as white as I was hoping/expecting but I can always return to Substance Designer and adjust this.
For my first attempt on my own I think I did okay, but I do not know if I'd be able to get the light to shift and refract like cracked ice would. I'm sure there would be a way to do this, but I'll need to figure it out. Perhaps in Arnold I'll be able to depending on the settings and maps I use such as height maps along with normal maps. I also like how the material looks on a flat plane rather than a sphere, but again this may look different in Arnold.
I think you may want to think about lighting this texture from within - to give it that light frequency we associate with snow and ice - it doesn't want to read as a 'glow' or light source exactly, but it wants to take on some of that translucency and sense of radiation/spread of light... or maybe this is an instance of the black background killing off some of the ice-ness?
ReplyDeleteYeah the black background could be it...it could be the overall colour of the ice as well which I can adjust. If it's not that then I could probably try putting a light inside of it, making it a mesh light, or creating an Ambient Occlusion map. There are also some lava substances I've seen online that I might download to see how they made the glowing effect since that may be a useful effect.
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