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Water Jug — Procedural Metal Study

Material and look-development study exploring fully procedural metallic shading in V-Ray.

Role
Retopology, Modeling, Look Development, Lighting, Rendering
Tools
Maya, V-Ray GPU, Nuke, Photoshop
Gold procedural water jug render

I was responsible for retopology, modeling, look development, lighting, and rendering for this study. Built in Maya, rendered with V-Ray GPU, and finished in Nuke and Photoshop, the project was created to test fully procedural metallic shading using V-Ray Dirt and Bercon noise rather than painted texture maps. The goal was to create a believable worn metal surface and evaluate how the same asset and shader logic would hold up across hero views, close-up crops, and alternate material variations.

Base form and procedural setup

The clay render was used to evaluate the underlying form, silhouette, and light response before final material work. From there, the study focused on building a procedural surface treatment that could produce believable wear, dirt buildup, and variation without relying on bitmap textures.

Water jug clay render
Clay render used to evaluate form before final shading.

Gold material close-ups

These close-up crops were used to assess edge breakup, dirt distribution, reflectivity, and how the procedural shader behaved across different parts of the surface in the final gold pass.

Gold water jug detail crop 1
Gold material crop.
Gold water jug detail crop 2
Gold material crop.
Gold water jug detail crop 3
Gold material crop.

Silver material pass

The same asset and procedural logic were also tested with a silver finish, allowing the study to compare how the shader translated to a cooler metallic treatment while preserving the same aged and procedural character.

Silver procedural water jug render
Silver variation of the same procedural shading setup.

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