Hello Poserites!

I've been wondering how best to recreate a cymbal material in P11 for quite a long old while and I hope someone (BB?! WE LOVE YOU!!!) can help.

So, cymbals are generally made from some kind of bronze, brass, nickel, zinc and copper alloy, with vastly varying percentages of metals for each manufacturer and series of cymbal, but I think there are close to as many different cymbal alloys as there are metals!

Cymbals are also finished in many different ways, or not finished at all. Cymbals that are not finished are known as traditional or 'natural' and they pretty much always look dull and tarnished, but have a dark, dry tone which suits certain styles of music. Cymbals which are finished can be highly polished to an almost mirror finish, show signs of turning (on a lathe) with shallow grooves visible and even have specifically placed dent patterns which have been hammered into them.

For these reasons, I think getting a good cymbal material working would depend on what kind of cymbal we're looking at. As such, because I like everything to be thorough, I'd like to be able to recreate pretty much all of them! Google is pretty much the best place to go for cymbal images, but I'll try to post some examples of what I'm looking for. Oh, and the logos would need to be recreated as well, which presents its own challenge, I think. In real life, these are stamped on using the same technique as is used with many die cast models and such things.

Below are a few examples of the kinds of materials I would like to recreate, if possible. If someone good with materials could help with this, I'd be very grateful. It should be noted that I'm looking for realism above anything else and, as such, sphere maps and the like are best avoided, I think. RT reflections etc are the best option, I'd have thought.

Many thanks.

Zildjian K Custom Special Dry Ride (Natural finish with hammering and turning for the grooves)

Zildjian Z Custom Bottom Hihat (Brilliant finish with light turning for the grooves and extensive hammering)

Zildjian A Custom ride (Brilliant finish with minimal hammering and very light turning, creating a rippled effect... note the laser etched Zildjian logo to the right hand side)

Infinitely more can be found online, there are more cymbal pictures than anything, it seems, lol!

Any of BB's procedural metals would work, with the colour adapted. You'd have to fiddle around with the reflections and specularity to get each type, though. The turned effect and logos could be added by using the Blender node with an appropriate decal. The cymbals would have to be planar mapped for it to work, of course.

For Firefly, displacement could also work for the hammered effect but I guess normal or bump maps would also do the trick.

Our old drummer used Zildjian cymbals with their Brilliant finish. Painful under stage lights.

SamTherapy posted at 11:40AM Wed, 25 September 2019 - #4363429

Any of BB's procedural metals would work, with the colour adapted. You'd have to fiddle around with the reflections and specularity to get each type, though. The turned effect and logos could be added by using the Blender node with an appropriate decal. The cymbals would have to be planar mapped for it to work, of course.

For Firefly, displacement could also work for the hammered effect but I guess normal or bump maps would also do the trick.

Our old drummer used Zildjian cymbals with their Brilliant finish. Painful under stage lights.

The drummer or the cymbals?????

ypvs posted at 12:17PM Wed, 25 September 2019 - #4364023

SamTherapy posted at 11:40AM Wed, 25 September 2019 - #4363429

Any of BB's procedural metals would work, with the colour adapted. You'd have to fiddle around with the reflections and specularity to get each type, though. The turned effect and logos could be added by using the Blender node with an appropriate decal. The cymbals would have to be planar mapped for it to work, of course.

For Firefly, displacement could also work for the hammered effect but I guess normal or bump maps would also do the trick.

Our old drummer used Zildjian cymbals with their Brilliant finish. Painful under stage lights.

The drummer or the cymbals?????

Hehe. The cymbals. Gary was a pretty good drummer. Flashy in the right places, imaginative and rock solid. I have worked with better drummers, years later, but then I was a much better guitarist by that time, too.

Glen, are you going to model a cymbal? If so, I'd recommend UV mapping so that the top surface is mapped as a circle, touching all four edges of 0-1 UV space. Same for bottom side.

You didn't specify Superfly, Firefly, or both, but for Superfly I think the PhysicalSurface root gives the best metals and is easily done.

I would make a B&W mask for the logo, then use that to control both color and metallicity. I would do the turning grooves and hammering dents with a bump map.

My machines are rendering right now, so no material screenshots.

seachnasaigh posted at 6:47PM Thu, 26 September 2019 - #4364163

Glen, are you going to model a cymbal? If so, I'd recommend UV mapping so that the top surface is mapped as a circle, touching all four edges of 0-1 UV space. Same for bottom side.

You didn't specify Superfly, Firefly, or both, but for Superfly I think the PhysicalSurface root gives the best metals and is easily done.

I would make a B&W mask for the logo, then use that to control both color and metallicity. I would do the turning grooves and hammering dents with a bump map.

My machines are rendering right now, so no material screenshots.

Am I bleedin' invisible, or something? ;)

SamTherapy posted at 7:58PM Thu, 26 September 2019 - #4364190

Am I bleedin' invisible, or something? ;)

Hah! No, but I haven't seen a response, so...

Hello, sorry for the late response... it seems Rendo's forum notification thingy is still lazy. I'm also having yet more life issues right now, so no idea if I'm coming or going half the time.

Sorry, it'll be firefly to begin with, at least. Also, I'm using the Rama Drums product mainly, and I'm not too sure how the UV mapping is done on those cymbals, but there's no reason I couldn't have a blast at making a cymbal pack of my own and replacing the Rama ones with them, I'll look into it, I'd have thought making cymbals would be pretty simple really.

At this precise moment in time, I'm having terrible problems in my new flat (been here exactly a month today and it's barely habitable... nightmare!), so I've no idea whether I'll be in hotels, here or moving elsewhere. I need a break!

Might not respond for a bit but I don't want this to die. Thanks for the info so far, I'll try things when I can.