Help modeling a kitsune jewel

[kayila]

My first time posting Here, I believe, despite being a member for quite some time.

I’m trying to model a kitsune’s jewel, also referred to as a ‘hoshi no tama’ or ‘star ball’ in blender. I imagine the way this would look would be a number of moving lights or stars within a glassy, gemstone-like orb.

After longer than I’d like to admit(years) I finally have managed to get an animation of the lights I’m reasonably happy with using the simulation nodes within Blender’s geometry nodes.

Now, however, I seem to be stuck on a way to make a realistic orb surrounding the lights. It seems like whenever I try to add it, the orb makes the lights inside completely hidden!

I know it’s not directly related to a course on cgcookie, but if anyone could help me out here, I would really appreciate it. I’m at my wit’s end and getting incredibly disheartened by this project. It feels like I’ve made no progress on it in the years since I conceived it.

Thank you for any and all help.

[Martin Bergwerf]

Hi Kayla,

Could you show us a reference of what you are trying to acchieve (Googling those terms didn’t really give me anything) and also 1 or more screenshots of what you have so far. Because from your description, it sounds to me like a glass ball with lights in it, but I have no idea why that would cause any problems.

[Omar Domenech]

As Martin says, post some references and what you have managed to achieve so far. One thing to keep in mind is that sometimes we try to go about things the wrong way, or maybe not the wrong way, but the less practical way. In that we try to make things work on screen by default, perhaps as things would physically behave, when in reality animations you see out there people have had to fake a lot of stuff and add it in post-production, and it gives the illusions that it’s all in the 3D view. A lot of times that’s why we find ourselves stuck, because we’re trying to do something real that other people just faked. 

[kayila]

So, as with so many computer problems, I asked for help and attempted to get an example of the problem, and instead my computer decided that there was no problem and everything was working fine.

The initial problem, for what it was worth, is that the orb itself was rendering as either opaque (rendering the inside completely invisible) or transparent, yet somehow hiding the animation inside.

Seems to work now, so I’ve no idea what I was doing wrong before.

Thank you both for offering to help!

I’m attaching an image of what I have anyways in case anyone sees something obviously wrong or if anyone wants to see what I did.

[Martin Bergwerf]

Hi Kayla,

Where you using Cycles the whole tiime?

Also, are you using any Addons, that may afefect the Rendering? There is an Icon next to the Pause Button (like the Display Channels Icon in the Compositor) in your 3D Viewport, that doesn’t appear in my Blender…that makes me suspicious😉

[Omar Domenech]

That is looking cool though. Love how the streaks move and fade and bounce around when they reach the edge of the sphere. 

[kayila]

Hey Martin,

I think you may be onto something. I suspect I may have been using Eevee previously. I guess a modified version of my question would be could this effect be done in eevee?

As for the addons…. I don’t believe any should be affecting rendering, but I suspect that the addon you’re referring to is References Overlays: https://extensions.blender.org/add-ons/references-overlays

[Martin Bergwerf]

Ah, that sounds like a cool Addon!

And no, that one wouldn’t affect the Render.

Oh, I am sure this could be done in EEVEE as well, but it might need a bit more work and possible adaptations.

[Author]

Posts