I took some pix of the thunderstorm to make a background for the diner, which started all the fires are here–including the one that’s threatening my friend’s house house, where I have moved some shop things in. It was only a cellphone pic, so I stacked a few more pics to reduce the noise, and used nVidia’s denoise to clean it up a bit.
At least I have a background I can use; the other wasn’t mine. The metal for the diner is still a problem texture because, while the real diners are brushed (sanded) stainless, that texture is below what you can see from a distance given modular transform frequencies, and all of that. So, seeing the grain as a bump is even more difficult because–now you need 3 pixels to show: a shadow, a texture pixel, and a highlight. This is where a texture helps, but if too much is added, then it’s not reflected enough.
I wanted to use Fresnel reflectivity, but I find that there’s not enough reflection amplitude for metal, and also for the insulator on the pole.
I wanted it to look like it had just finished raining.
