Nature Mort

Jalapano Rotting:

With my reference images to go by, I started setting up my Nature Mort piece by writing both a Displacement and Surface shader.

Close, but no Jalapano:

Using cellnoise to change the surface color and a combination of cellnoise and s-wave for the diaplacement map, I was able to create my first rot texture that animates in both displacement and surface. In effect, the jalapano’s skin seems to be boiling off. This outcome was not what I wanted. The idea was cool, but definitely not how it realistically should look.

Bingo! Pepper Rots!

Taking my displacement idea back to square one, I replaced my s-wave and cellnoise patterns with two that at least seemed to make sense: noise and turbulance. Manipulating the displacement, while keeping the same surface shader seemed to do the trick. It’s not exactly the same as my reference, but it’s definitely how a pepper should rot.

View Hi-Res here

Inner Workings of a Jalapano:

I modeled the jalapano out of a nurbs sphere. I added a random offset for my cellnoise surface map. Here is a sample of my displacement code:

Surface Snippet-

Oi = Os;
float d = dist2cell(P, spacename, cellfreq);
float rad = shape_rad;

if(d <= rad + (float random()/10))
    surfcolor = surfcl2;
else
    surfcolor = surfcl1;

color diffusecolor = Kd * diffuse(nf);
Ci = Oi * (Cs * surfcolor * (ambientcolor + diffusecolor)
	+ speccolor*Ks*speccolor);

Displacement Snippet-

////////////NOISE/////////////
float shump = 0,
	bhump = 0,
  	ifreq = totalFrequency,
	i = 0;
    	normal  n = normalize(N),
    	pp = transform(coordname, P);

	shump = noise(pp * freq) * amp;
/////////////NOISE/////////////			

///////////TURBULANCE//////////
for(i = 0; i < 2; i = i + 1)
{
	bhump = bhump + abs(0.5 - noise(crinckle *
	ifreq * P))/ifreq;
	ifreq *= 1.2;
}
///////////TURBULANCE/////////

Displacement and Surface Setup:

Using Lerp statements, I modified the surface in color and cellnoise radius over time. In the same way, I modified the frequency and magnitude of displacement values to give the surface its shrunken look.

Slim Palate: