I’ve been tinkering with Cycles4d by Insydium. In the world full of new GPU render engines, Cycles4d is definitely the most affordable at the time of this post. The engine itself is created by the Blender Foundation, and Insydium (the makers of X-Particles) ported Cycles4d for use inside Cinema4d. Using it’s artist friendly node based setup, and an enormous back log of tutorials for blender, Cycles4d is a great GPU render solution.
Finally feeling comfortable enough to make some real renders, Here’s a bit of the process.
Starting with parametric models, and adding some modifiers to ensure nothing was perfectly shaped, and adding bevels. UV unwrapping was unfortunately necessary to apply the numbers to correct sides. Finally adding a Subdivision surface object to ensure smooth geometry and a uniform density of polygons across all the models.
Next, doing a lot of testing with Cycles4d and their material setups. I borrowed a new glass shader group built by Insydium, allowing more flexibility with the light dispersion. Combining that will a few grunge textures from Poliigon.com to add some fingerprints and micro scratches, I had a pretty solid looking plastic material for the dice. Mixing the UV textures for the numbers location and bump, I was able to easily add some metallic paint while using the same bumps and grime across the whole surface. See the node setup below.
Lastly, after rendering (around 2 hrs), I did some final color correction and look direction in Photoshop.
