Refractive Sculptures
Briefing
The Challenge
The lockdown gave me a chance to spend my time on creative work that I wanted to do for a long time. The purpose of this was to visually research the effects of form on the refraction and how to get the most visually appealing structures / refractions. For this process I used C4D and the Octane Render Engine.
Refraction itself is a physical phenomena that describes the process of light changing its direction when traveling through a surface.
Hence our vision of the objects behind the surface are distorted. In CG the term IOR describes this attribute and displays how strong the distortion is. During this series of experiments I combined that with chromatic dispersion where one colored light separates into its components of different wavelengths - colors.
This effect is used a lot in modern days media as glitches and RGB separation have become a trend.
IOR: 1.1
DISPERSION: 0.1
#01
Surface Imperfections
The use of different shapes was interesting as well in this experiment. Dependent on the surface, the light would react differently. It turned out the placement of the light had a huge effect on the image - especially when working with high dispersion values.
IOR: 1.322176
DISPERSION: 0.078463
FILM IOR: 1.081828
#02
The Film Filter
Another component I added was the Film-Filter in Octane. With this option, reflections get more colorful and distort the color of the light even more.
The use of different shapes was interesting as well in this experiment. Dependent on the curvature of the surface, the light would react differently and give a lot of interesting results.
IOR: 1.322176
DISPERSION: 0.078463
FILM IOR: 1.081828
Process
What does it take?
This project was a great excuse for me to play around with different settings and learn about refraction as well as dispersion. The experimental process allowed for a lot of flexibilty so I was able to go with whatever felt right at the moment. That made the whole project very enjoyable.
