Nutcracker Still Life — SSS Study

Still life study created to test V-Ray Random Walk SSS in a controlled lighting setup.

Role

Layout, Lighting, Look Development, Rendering

Tools

3ds Max, V-Ray GPU, Nuke, Photoshop

Nutcracker still life final render — Final still life render.

I handled layout, lighting, look development, and rendering for this study. Built in 3ds Max, rendered with V-Ray GPU, and finished in Nuke and Photoshop, the image was created to test V-Ray’s Random Walk SSS in a controlled still life setup. The goal was to get convincing subsurface response while keeping the composition simple and the render efficient. Final render time was 3 minutes at 4K on 2× 4090 GPUs.

Process

Clay render

The clay render helps show the underlying forms and lighting setup before the final materials are applied.

Technical Notes

Study focus and performance

A focused material and performance test built around a single final image.

Study Focus

Testing the Random Walk SSS implementation in V-Ray.

Final Output

4K still image.

Render Performance

3 minutes on 2× 4090 GPUs.

Pipeline

3ds Max → V-Ray GPU → Nuke / Photoshop.

More work

Explore more CGI, visualization, and look-development work in the full portfolio.

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