rShaders simple ice is a procedural shader able to re-produce realistic iced surfaces.

It can be used alone or in a sub-material channel to achieve complex effects like snow covering objects in the scene. It is very fast to be rendered and contains a lot of simple parameters to obtain maximum control over it.

In general parameters you can find stuffs like the color/purity control, a simple complete color corrector tool to work on brightness, saturation and a color variation parameter. To mantain under control the over-exposure problem for a near white surface like that, you can change the diffusion and roughness value of the shader.

The user can controls the light reflectance over the surface controlling the algorithm to be used, the intensity, the glossiness, the index of refraction, the presence of crystals and less iced zone, and the output color of the rays intersecting the ice.

The internal bump system can controls the effects in a different way for the lighted and shadows area, achieving realistic effects like perturbations and cracks over the surface. The user can be able to add a custom bump map layer also.

The shader has the possibility to activate a custom displacement map given by the user.

The user can have complete control over the reflection, refraction and light scattering in a very simple way. He can decide which fx have to be used, can activate the raytracing optimization based on the rendering engine used, customize the reflection, (falloff, intensity e output ray coloring). A simple but efficient way to simulate refraction and light scattering is included also. The user can change the amount, the density of the ice, the scattering color and its falloff parameters.

Here you can see a technical rendering test done with the actual beta release. Rendertime is between 1 and 4 seconds with all the features in use. Stay tuned for the final gallery.