Useful article
January 24, 2023

Holographic effect in one click


How to achieve an interesting holographic effect when creating any material. Scientifically speaking, this phenomenon is called "light interference". When light is reflected from a surface, the waves intersect and weaken or amplify the light oscillations at different points in space. In this way, a beautiful shimmering of hues becomes visible at a certain angle of view. The most striking example, familiar to us from childhood, is the soap bubble.

You can achieve this effect with the Film Thickness plugin. According to the developer: "This plugin reproduces the effect of interference of a thin film on a surface".

Download the plugin here:
https://www.sigerstudio.eu/sigertexmaps-thinfilm/


In order to install the plugin, copy the file to the plugins folder in the 3ds Max directory. Don't forget that at this point the program must be closed!

Start 3ds Max, open the material editor and find our ThinFilm map. It is available in V-ray and Corona and works the same way.

For an example, let's create some material. You can do whatever you like. We make a base of metal, glass or fabric, and add our ThinFilm map to Refl.color.

Let's go into the map and see what settings it has.

The first thing we are interested in is Film Thickness nm (min/max) - the thickness of the film in nanometers. By changing the numbers you will see how the colors and transitions change. This parameter will be most often used to create different effects.

This is what you can achieve.

If you decrease the number, there will be fewer colors and shades.

It is also possible to add a black and white map that will make the color transitions work. In the V-ray renderer everything works the same way as in Corona.

Here's what may come out. The most interesting thing is that by experimenting, you can make a huge number of different materials.

In addition to film thickness and map, there are a couple of other settings.

IOR
External - refractive index of the medium surrounding the material.
Film - refractive index of the medium from which the thin film is made.
Internal - Refractive index of the medium underneath the thin film.

Color Adjustment
Gamma - gamma correction value.
Hue Shift - Allows you to change colors using the standard hue spectrum. Range = -180 ... 180.
Saturation - the intensity or purity of the colors. Decreasing the saturation value removes color, making the color tend toward grayscale, while increasing it intensifies the color.

You can twist these parameters yourself and see what happens. Of course, you can play around with the Falloff card to get a similar effect. But it's faster and more interesting with ThinFilm! Where to use? In metals, paints, fabrics - whatever you want.

Have a good rendering!
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