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In-depth reviews, showcases, updates, case studies and docs.

ROMBO TO ARNOLD

A set of powerful, fast and easy to use materials, a full node-based shading system, new procedural textures, a fully flagged denoiser and new imagers for advanced color corrections and grading. It implements latest advancements in computer graphics development that together with a smooth and ergonomic integration in your DCC application of choice, - brings shading and rendering to a whole new level.

Overview

Rombo To Arnold
Cutting-Edge..

shading tools for the Arnold renderer.
Engineered using latest technologies, delivering exceptional quality and performance. Simply get what you expect, uber-realistics artifact-free and super-fast renderings. Let Arnold, powered by Rombo, work its magic on your images.

Devoted to simplicity and easy to use, Rombo is here to give you a modern and advanced workflow that will let you forget about technicalities and will let you focus on what really matters. We believe in facts that after having been advanced and after the time of the know-it-all, one has to go back to the ground of simplicity to really exploit the complexity of his own vision.

  • High Performance

    Battle tested on production assets. Rombo born there, it is performance wise from the ground up. Stay in control of your renderings.

  • High Quality

    Arnold has a reputation for being fast, stable while delivering high-quality results, with Rombo we start from there and we go up and up.

  • User Friendly

    Tweaking shaders becomes a breeze with well integrated and artist-friendly GUIs, absorbing unwanted complexity and with a zero-steps learning curve, - you're ready to render in minutes. Designed by artists for artists.

  • Latest Technologies

    Based on latest technologies we keep boosting them while adding new ones as soon as we make them reliable. Good balance between stability and innovation makes Rombo production solid. From devs to devs.

Contents

Some scenes (many more in the downloads) to test rombo tools features and have instant fun , - just press the render button.
  • Alfa Stradale 1967

    AlfaRomeo Stradale 1967 model by wirewheelsclub.

    AVAILABLE FOR : MAYA, HOUDINI, C4D

    Here we’re using rombo MetallicPaint for the car body with a coating normalmap and a ReflectDiffraction node for all the metals.. namely chrome, aluminum and wheels brass with its default one-click (physicallly) measured appearances.


    Many other views are available and you’ll find a well setup scene for instant fun and learning.

    Full road textures and rain normal maps available plus other metallic paint materials together with a dry road material.

    For metallic paint documentation, see this page:
    MetallicPaint Documentation

    Alfa Stradale 1967
  • Porsche 911 – 1975

    Model and textures by Karol Miklas.

    AVAILABLE FOR : MAYA, HOUDINI, C4D

    This scene demos rombo BRDF-based MetallicPaint material and many other shading nodes to approach the original PBR workflow all with rombo tools.


    All materials and geometry have proper names and are organized for easy inspection and rendering.

    Various camera views are supplied and with different car paint setups, – mastering rombo materials is a breeze 🙂

    For metallic paint documentation, see this page:
    MetallicPaint Documentation

    Porsche 911 – 1975
  • Cyborg Police

    Model and textures by Nika Zautashvili.

    AVAILABLE FOR : C4D

    This scene shows how the usual PBR workflow can be easily approached with rombo materials where on top of that we use extra features like ‘reflection slope’ for improved realism. Reflection slope allows to have a generalized specular distribution (how highlights apppear) where we are not forced to choose one in advance (like for GGX and Beckmann) and where we can even use textures to map it over the object for a spatially varying BRDF.


    Various camera views are available and can be rendered out-of-the-box with no extra efforts.. – just click the render button !

    See this for some documentation : Reflection Slope

    Cyborg Police
  • The Feathers and the Rifle

    Model and textures by Antipov Artem.

    AVAILABLE FOR : MAYA, C4D

    Standard PBR workflow with rombo tools shading nodes.

    See this for documentation : Metalness & Specular Workflows

    The Feathers and the Rifle
  • Xeno Hunter

    Model and textures by Dimitar Grozev

    AVAILABLE FOR : MAYA/3DSMAX

    Showcasing SSS (random walk) with bump support.

    Documentation is here : SubsurfaceScattering

    Xeno Hunter
  • Glinty Watch

    AVAILABLE FOR : MAYA

    This is a test with Arnold adaptive sampler to show how our Glints are fully deterministic (while still being in a regime of randomness) in the sense that they are not seen as variance and effectively never converge to unrealistic super smooth highlights. Just compare how smooth is the ring flat surface against the body side hit by direct light. That’s where realism is made. Beside the diffraction proper coloration, for such little features one can’t just use textures to break highlights because they would ‘flicker’ instead of properly ‘glitter’.

    Documentation is here : Wave Optics Glints

    Glinty Watch
  • The Princess and the Pea

    Bed model by zeelproject.

    AVAILABLE FOR : MAYA

    Here we’re using RomboFabricWoven for all the fabrics. Some use the built-ins WIF patterns and some others use on top their own bitmaps. Due to the ad-hoc specular and fiber scattering models we can easily render both shiny fabrics like the duvet cover and other more rough like cottons and such. Ceramics use the interfaced-lambertian model available with RomboDiffuseInterfaced while metallic lamps and tables use the physically measured diffraction shading node (RomboReflectDiffraction -> Bronze).

    Refer to these for documentation :

    Improved Fabric Woven

    Fabric Woven

    The Princess and the Pea
  • Childhood’s Little Secrets

    Books model and textures by riemaeker, voice recorder model and textures by re1monsen.

    AVAILABLE FOR : HOUDINI

    This uses various rombo materials like SSSRandomWalk for the plants, DiffuseRough for the old books and ReflectGeneralized for the voice recorder where we used PBR textures like metalness roughness etc.


    Demo scenes are well organized with various camera views and/or different materials setups to inspect and learn little secrets here and there. They come for all major DCCs we support .. that is another way to learn both Arnold renderer and Rombo materials by cross inspecting them.

    Childhood’s Little Secrets
  • Boots of Spanish Leather

    Boots model and textures by inciprocal.

    AVAILABLE FOR : HOUDINI

    This uses ReflectFlakes for boots reflections. We call them ‘flakes’ but technically these are BRDF-based multiscale discrete reflections. For this very scene we’re more interested in the ‘discrete’ thing which goes against the ‘continuous’ or ‘smooth’ appearance of a general reflection lobe. Discrete here means that reflections are broken as in reality and not just ideally super smooth as generally in computer graphics. This gives an instant boost in realism.


    Below for example model and textures are already starting to fall apart (too high resolution) but as you can see that’s not the case for the speculars where you can start seeing their broken nature (please right click and then ‘open image in new tab’ if you see some horrible compression grid artifacts).


    On a close-up we can see that speculars are way more detailed than the normal and roughness maps they belongs to. They automagically converge to a smooth reflection when seen at distance (again, please right click and then ‘open image in new tab’ if you see horrible compression grid artifacts).

    Boots of Spanish Leather
  • Micro-brushing

    AVAILABLE FOR : HOUDINI

    With ReflectGlints we can fully approach ‘micro-brushing’ .. which is what actually makes a surface rough. We generally use statistical BRDF models to have rough reflections but those are intended to be used for far away views where what is rough actually is presented as smooth .. the problem is that the more we get closer the more we should see it getting rougher instead it simply remains smooth. In reality the more we get closer to the metal the more we’ll start to see the singular structures that make it rough, – that’s what happens below with ReflectGlints (only the camera view changed).


    We may try to break our super smooth reflections with roughness or (even worst) with normal maps. The problem with plain bitmaps is that when the brush strokes will be way more little than a pixel they won’t be resolved correctly and won’t converge to a smooth patch at distance, appearing like a flickering mess .. mipmapping will do the rest instead when we’ll try a close-up .. they will appear either too smooth or too crisp and we’ll also miss the spectral coloration.

    Instead even without getting to macro-like close-ups as above with ReflectGlints the appearance of metals is more realistic than when approached with models like GGX .. for example note the warm metal look .. ie. those golden shades come from the wave optics model and are physically based.


    Eventually we can increase the ‘coverage’ param and decrease the ‘smoothness’ param to start seeing the brush structures from distance.

    Refer to the following page for more info :

    Wave Optics Glints

    Micro-brushing
  • Magnum Rhino Gun

    Gun model and textures by doomsentinel.

    AVAILABLE FOR : HOUDINI, C4D

    Here we’re using ReflectMultiscatter for the guns and BRDF-based flakes (ReflectGlints) for the bullets where we enabled ‘wave optics’ that brings subtle colorful spectral effects to the material. Being a full BRDF it also means we can break-up our specular highlights without introducing flickering.


    Wave interference is the phenomenon that makes scratches patinas and glints rainbow-like colored when we look at metals from a close-up. That’s also what makes metals very hard to be rendered realistically. With Arnold and the power of Rombo we can approach this by just enabling ‘wave optics’ in the material parameters. Still with one click we can switch over glints / flakes / scratches / brushedW / brushedH. Eventually, we can still use all our PBR textures.

    Refer to the following pages for more info :

    Wave Optics Glints

    Multiple Scattering BRDF

    Magnum Rhino Gun
  • Makarov Gun

    Model and textures by Bexxie.

    AVAILABLE FOR : HOUDINI, C4D

    Here we use a ReflectGeneralized node with a very low reflection slope to extend the reflection tail and give reflections a bit of hazing together with analytical microfacet-based normal mapping to let details come to life.. we still use our usual normal and bump maps, – they just look better.


    All textures are usual PBR textures used with the metalness workflow available with the node, on top of that we use rombo tools features.

    Refer to these pages for documentation :

    Microfacet-based Normal Mapping
    Hazy Reflections

    Makarov Gun
  • Pigs Ain’t No Swim

    Model and texture by Václav Pleticha.

    AVAILABLE FOR : MAYA

    Here we are demoing SkinLayers, our flexible skin shader based on dipole SSS.

    See documentation here : Skin Layers

     

    Pigs Ain’t No Swim
  • Judge Dredd

    Model and textures by Willy Decarpentrie.

    AVAILABLE FOR : MAYA

    PBR workflow with ReflectGeneralized and SkinLayers.

    See documentation here : Skin Layers

    Judge Dredd
  • Diffraction Lobe

    Model from zeelproject.

    AVAILABLE FOR : MAYA

    This puts ReflectDiffraction node to good work.

    Documentation is here : Diffraction Lobe

     

    Diffraction Lobe
  • Toony Beach

    Model by ksyu3d.

    AVAILABLE FOR : MAYA/C4D

    Here showcasing DiffusePrincipled and Refract shaders.

    Documentation is here : Refractions
    Principled v Generalized Diffuse

    Toony Beach
  • Gurley Burt Solar Transit

    Model and textures by Nika Tendetnik

    AVAILABLE FOR : 3DSMAX
    Showcase of PBR support with rombotools and 3dsMax.
    Gurley Burt Solar Transit
  • An Apple, a Lime and a Rock

    Rock model and texture by ENSGeologie.

    AVAILABLE FOR : HOUDINI

    This scene uses SkinLayers for the apple and lime and SSSRandomWalk for the rock with full non-exponential walks. SkinLayers offers a three layers SSS dipole implementation in the style of the old alSurface material with added features like ‘peach fuzz’ reflections used here to make fruits a bit more lived.

    Refer to these pages for further info :

    Skin Layers

    SSS Random Walk

    An Apple, a Lime and a Rock
  • Cookies & Milk

    Cookies, milk bottle and textures by Harsh Agrawal.

    AVAILABLE FOR : HOUDINI, C4D

    This uses directional dipole (romboSSSDipole) for cookies, milk and chocolate milk. For milk and chocolate milk we use the build-in measured scattering properties for a one-click solution. Because both milk and choco milk are surrounded by glass and glass is setup to have more samples, we can use the ‘single trace’ option for dipole to speed up subsurface scattering computation.

    Refer to this page for further info :
    Dipole Model for SSS

    Cookies & Milk
  • Studio Ghibli Style Render

    Model and textures by luyssport.

    AVAILABLE FOR : HOUDINI

    Here we use rombo DiffuseSmooth which is a super smooth diffuse shading that works particularly well for toonish renderings because it is way more less contrasted than the classic diffuse. There’s also an application for our custom transparency shader.


    Various camera views are available.

    Refer to this for documentation : Smooth Diffuse aka Lambert Sphere

    Studio Ghibli Style Render
  • Korean Public Phone

    AVAILABLE FOR : HOUDINI, C4D

    This uses ReflectMultiScatter and the metalness workflow for a full PBR approach.

    Here some documentation : Multiple Scattering BRDF

    Korean Public Phone
  • Detonation Surverk

    Model and textures by Skokloster Castle.

    AVAILABLE FOR : HOUDINI, C4D

    This is a demo for the metalness workflow available together with the specular workflow on both ReflectGeneralize and ReflectMultiScatter rombo shading nodes.

    Refer to these for documentation :
    Metalness & Specular Workflows
    Multiple Scattering BRDF

    Detonation Surverk
  • Marble Bust

    AVAILABLE FOR : HOUDINI

    Here we’re using SSSRandomWalk with a map controlling the amount of translucency. Translucency here is not the general amount of subsurface scattering (which is controlled as usual with color, radius and scale) but the amount of non-exponentiality in the random walk. Arnold Standard Surface does only exponential random walks; our shader instead does also non-exponential walks. Non-exponential vs exponential refers to the decay of light when travelling in the medium. From physical measurements it turns out that most SSS materials exhibits both behaviours.


    Marble is one of those materials where non-exponential light decay gives nice nuances to the model. Remember that our nodes come with all the lobes necessary to rig a full model.. ie. if you don’t have special needs for other specular layers you can directly use those that come with the SSS node for a super easy and fast PBR workflow. Ie. it simply works as the Arnold Standard Surface but for the same amount of samples, it is faster with better convergence and with extra parameters.

    Refer to this page for documentation : SSS Random Walk

    Marble Bust
  • Car on a Mountain Road

    Car model by Danila Davydov, Mountain scan by Bilgehan Korkma

    AVAILABLE FOR : HOUDINI

    Realistic rendition with rombotools and Houdini.

    Car on a Mountain Road
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