AlfaRomeo Stradale 1967 model by wirewheelsclub.

AVAILABLE FOR : MAYA, HOUDINI, C4D

Here we’re using rombo MetallicPaint for the car body with a coating normalmap and a ReflectDiffraction node for all the metals.. namely chrome, aluminum and wheels brass with its default one-click (physicallly) measured appearances.

Many other views are available and you’ll find a well setup scene for instant fun and learning.

Full road textures and rain normal maps available plus other metallic paint materials together with a dry road material.

For metallic paint documentation, see this page:
MetallicPaint Documentation

Model and textures by Karol Miklas.

AVAILABLE FOR : MAYA, HOUDINI, C4D

This scene demos rombo BRDF-based MetallicPaint material and many other shading nodes to approach the original PBR workflow all with rombo tools.

All materials and geometry have proper names and are organized for easy inspection and rendering.

Various camera views are supplied and with different car paint setups, – mastering rombo materials is a breeze 🙂

For metallic paint documentation, see this page:
MetallicPaint Documentation

Model and textures by Nika Zautashvili.

AVAILABLE FOR : C4D

This scene shows how the usual PBR workflow can be easily approached with rombo materials where on top of that we use extra features like ‘reflection slope’ for improved realism. Reflection slope allows to have a generalized specular distribution (how highlights apppear) where we are not forced to choose one in advance (like for GGX and Beckmann) and where we can even use textures to map it over the object for a spatially varying BRDF.

Various camera views are available and can be rendered out-of-the-box with no extra efforts.. – just click the render button !

See this for some documentation : Reflection Slope

Model and textures by Antipov Artem.

AVAILABLE FOR : MAYA, C4D

Standard PBR workflow with rombo tools shading nodes.

See this for documentation : Metalness & Specular Workflows

Model and textures by Bexxie.

AVAILABLE FOR : HOUDINI, C4D

Here we use a ReflectGeneralized node with a very low reflection slope to extend the reflection tail and give reflections a bit of hazing together with analytical microfacet-based normal mapping to let details come to life.. we still use our usual normal and bump maps, – they just look better.

All textures are usual PBR textures used with the metalness workflow available with the node, on top of that we use rombo tools features.

Refer to these pages for documentation :

Microfacet-based Normal Mapping
Hazy Reflections

Gun model and textures by doomsentinel.

AVAILABLE FOR : HOUDINI, C4D

Here we’re using ReflectMultiscatter for the guns and BRDF-based flakes (ReflectGlints) for the bullets where we enabled ‘wave optics’ that brings subtle colorful spectral effects to the material. Being a full BRDF it also means we can break-up our specular highlights without introducing flickering.

Wave interference is the phenomenon that makes scratches patinas and glints rainbow-like colored when we look at metals from a close-up. That’s also what makes metals very hard to be rendered realistically. With Arnold and the power of Rombo we can approach this by just enabling ‘wave optics’ in the material parameters. Still with one click we can switch over glints / flakes / scratches / brushedW / brushedH. Eventually, we can still use all our PBR textures.

Refer to the following pages for more info :

Wave Optics Glints

Multiple Scattering BRDF

AVAILABLE FOR : HOUDINI

With ReflectGlints we can fully approach ‘micro-brushing’ .. which is what actually makes a surface rough. We generally use statistical BRDF models to have rough reflections but those are intended to be used for far away views where what is rough actually is presented as smooth .. the problem is that the more we get closer the more we should see it getting rougher instead it simply remains smooth. In reality the more we get closer to the metal the more we’ll start to see the singular structures that make it rough, – that’s what happens below with ReflectGlints (only the camera view changed).

We may try to break our super smooth reflections with roughness or (even worst) with normal maps. The problem with plain bitmaps is that when the brush strokes will be way more little than a pixel they won’t be resolved correctly and won’t converge to a smooth patch at distance, appearing like a flickering mess .. mipmapping will do the rest instead when we’ll try a close-up .. they will appear either too smooth or too crisp and we’ll also miss the spectral coloration.

Instead even without getting to macro-like close-ups as above with ReflectGlints the appearance of metals is more realistic than when approached with models like GGX .. for example note the warm metal look .. ie. those golden shades come from the wave optics model and are physically based.

Eventually we can increase the ‘coverage’ param and decrease the ‘smoothness’ param to start seeing the brush structures from distance.

Refer to the following page for more info :

Wave Optics Glints

Boots model and textures by inciprocal.

AVAILABLE FOR : HOUDINI

This uses ReflectFlakes for boots reflections. We call them ‘flakes’ but technically these are BRDF-based multiscale discrete reflections. For this very scene we’re more interested in the ‘discrete’ thing which goes against the ‘continuos’ or ‘smooth’ appearance of a general reflection lobe. Discrete here means that reflections are broken as in reality and not just ideally super smooth as generally in computer graphics. This gives an instant boost in realism.

Below for example model and textures are already starting to fall apart (too high resolution) but as you can see that’s not the case for the speculars where you can start seeing their broken nature (please right click and then ‘open image in new tab’ if you see some horrible compression grid artifacts).

On a close-up we can see that speculars are way more detailed than the normal and roughness maps they belongs to. They automagically converge to a smooth reflection when seen at distance (again, please right click and then ‘open image in new tab’ if you see horrible compression grid artifacts).

Bed model by zeelproject.

AVAILABLE FOR : MAYA

Here we’re using RomboFabricWoven for all the fabrics. Some use the built-ins WIF patterns and some others use on top their own bitmaps. Due to the ad-hoc specular and fiber scattering models we can easily render both shiny fabrics like the duvet cover and other more rough like cottons and such. Ceramics use the interfaced-lambertian model available with RomboDiffuseInterfaced while metallic lamps and tables use the physically measured diffraction shading node (RomboReflectDiffraction -> Bronze).

Refer to these for documentation :

Improved Fabric Woven

Fabric Woven

Books model and textures by riemaeker, voice recorder model and textures by re1monsen.

AVAILABLE FOR : HOUDINI

This uses various rombo materials like SSSRandomWalk for the plants, DiffuseRough for the old books and ReflectGeneralized for the voice recorder where we used PBR textures like metalness roughness etc.

Demo scenes are well organized with various camera views and/or different materials setups to inspect and learn little secrets here and there. They come for all major DCCs we support .. that is another way to learn both Arnold renderer and Rombo materials by cross inspecting them.

Rock model and texture by ENSGeologie.

AVAILABLE FOR : HOUDINI

This scene uses SkinLayers for the apple and lime and SSSRandomWalk for the rock with full non-exponential walks. SkinLayers offers a three layers SSS dipole implementation in the style of the old alSurface material with added features like ‘peach fuzz’ reflections used here to make fruits a bit more lived.

Refer to these pages for further info :

Skin Layers

SSS Random Walk

Cookies, milk bottle and textures by Harsh Agrawal.

AVAILABLE FOR : HOUDINI, C4D

This uses directional dipole (romboSSSDipole) for cookies, milk and chocolate milk. For milk and chocolate milk we use the build-in measured scattering properties for a one-click solution. Because both milk and choco milk are surrounded by glass and glass is setup to have more samples, we can use the ‘single trace’ option for dipole to speed up subsurface scattering computation.

Refer to this page for further info :
Dipole Model for SSS

Model and textures by luyssport.

AVAILABLE FOR : HOUDINI

Here we use rombo DiffuseSmooth which is a super smooth diffuse shading that works particularly well for toonish renderings because it is way more less contrasted than the classic diffuse. There’s also an application for our custom transparency shader.

Various camera views are available.

Refer to this for documentation : Smooth Diffuse aka Lambert Sphere

Model and textures by Skokloster Castle.

AVAILABLE FOR : HOUDINI, C4D

This is a demo for the metalness workflow available together with the specular workflow on both ReflectGeneralize and ReflectMultiScatter rombo shading nodes.

Refer to these for documentation :
Metalness & Specular Workflows
Multiple Scattering BRDF

AVAILABLE FOR : HOUDINI, C4D

This uses ReflectMultiScatter and the metalness workflow for a full PBR approach.

Here some documentation : Multiple Scattering BRDF

AVAILABLE FOR : HOUDINI

Here we’re using SSSRandomWalk with a map controlling the amount of translucency. Translucency here is not the general amount of subsurface scattering (which is controlled as usual with color, radius and scale) but the amount of non-exponentiality in the random walk. Arnold Standard Surface does only exponential random walks; our shader instead does also non-exponential walks. Non-exponential vs exponential refers to the decay of light when travelling in the medium. From physical measurements it turns out that most SSS materials exhibits both behaviours.

Marble is one of those materials where non-exponential light decay gives nice nuances to the model. Remember that our nodes come with all the lobes necessary to rig a full model.. ie. if you don’t have special needs for other specular layers you can directly use those that come with the SSS node for a super easy and fast PBR workflow. Ie. it simply works as the Arnold Standard Surface but for the same amount of samples, it is faster with better convergence and with extra parameters.

Refer to this page for documentation : SSS Random Walk

Model and texture by Václav Pleticha.

AVAILABLE FOR : MAYA

Here we are demoing SkinLayers, our flexible skin shader based on dipole SSS.

See documentation here : Skin Layers

Model and textures by Willy Decarpentrie.

AVAILABLE FOR : MAYA

PBR workflow with ReflectGeneralized and SkinLayers.

See documentation here : Skin Layers

Model from zeelproject.

AVAILABLE FOR : MAYA

This puts ReflectDiffraction node to good work.

Documentation is here : Diffraction Lobe

Model by ksyu3d.

AVAILABLE FOR : MAYA/C4D

Here showcasing DiffusePrincipled and Refract shaders.

Documentation is here : Refractions
Principled v Generalized Diffuse

Model and textures by Dimitar Grozev

AVAILABLE FOR : MAYA/3DSMAX

Showcasing SSS (random walk) with bump support.

Documentation is here : SubsurfaceScattering

AVAILABLE FOR : MAYA

This is a test with Arnold adaptive sampler to show how our Glints are fully deterministic (while still being in a regime of randomness) in the sense that they are not seen as variance and effectively never converge to unrealistic super smooth highlights. Just compare how smooth is the ring flat surface against the body side hit by direct light. That’s where realism is made. Beside the diffraction proper coloration, for such little features one can’t just use textures to break highlights because they would ‘flicker’ instead of properly ‘glitter’.

Documentation is here : Wave Optics Glints

Car model by Danila Davydov, Mountain scan by Bilgehan Korkma

AVAILABLE FOR : HOUDINI

Realistic rendition with rombotools and Houdini.