AuthorTopic: Crystals (Read 3156 times)

wzl · **on:** December 19, 2016, 08:12:16 pm

Bonjour

I've been always fascinated with crystals, they're so pretty. they reflect and refract, are subsurface illuminated, have cracks on the outside and inside as well, come in different colors and purities. All these properties make it insanely difficult for me to wrap my head around stylizing and rendering crystals properly.
I did a short research session and did a few attempts afterwards last night

I'm fairly ok with what i turned up with, but i feel it could be much more.... pretty, facetious and interesting.

Do you guys have any hints, refs or own attempts at crystal pixels?

MAVW · **Reply #1 on:** December 19, 2016, 09:20:04 pm

they're really nice! tbh I clicked the thread expecting that common pixel art crystal, you know, a lot of light blue and big white highlights..

yours is great, they have that nice refraction inside (which is a hard thing to do), good lights (expect for the first one imo), nice colors, nice shapes. I'd say something about the few curved lines it has but I don't think they are a problem.. if you're still experimenting then maybe you can try using well defined straight lines, I believe it'll give a more human-refined look to the crystal (if that's what you're going for)

^{(saving this image because I clearly need to step up my crystal game)}

Ozego · **Reply #2 on:** December 20, 2016, 08:56:56 am

I think the best advice is really to just look at a lot of references. Maybe buy a cheap glass crystal so you can see how it physically reacts to light, they sell a lot at newage stores.
I found this when researching UI a while ago. https://www.pinterest.com/pin/548946642055007807/ There are tons and tons of chinese tutorials on how to render everything. I don't think it really teaches anything you are not doing already, but I'll let you be the judge of that.

wzl · **Reply #3 on:** December 20, 2016, 09:28:16 am

Thanks for the kind words!
Getting my hands on some crystals is a good idea. No clue where locally i could buy them here, and for what price. well, gotta go shopping i suppose

Thanks for the references but damn you pinterest, i will never make an account, no matter how much you're asking me too *shakes fist*
i might have to eventually, since a lot of good refs (photo and drawn) are on that site though.