Rendering LCD or OLED screens

[onehandisbroken]

Hello!

What would you suggest is the best way to go about rendering a screen, to make it look as realistic as possible?

Should I just use Photoshop instead or are there any good methods for this?


Thanks!

[Eddoron]

Do you mean something like a close-up where you see the RGB-structure?

[onehandisbroken]

That would be interesting as well, but I do not think I'll need that level of detail for this project.

Somewhat close renders, maybe 50cm from the object. As I'm thinking this will be a modern touchscreen with high resolution/ppi, individual pixels would be hard distinguish.
I'm thinking of making the screen like this:
Top layer - outer glass screen.
Middle - plane with a mockup graphic of the screen UI.
Bottom - some emitting backlight type of plane.

Am I in the ballpark, or should I approach it in some other way?

Maybe this is more of a modelling question?

[PROH]

Hi. I would do the top and middle layer as you describe, but instead of the back layer, I would use self illumination on the middle layer.

Hope it helps

[Eddoron]

Yes, you're in the ballpark but you make it unnecessary complicated.

Everything can be done with one material on one plane. (2 if you need obvious visible glass)

You basically just need a material with the bitmap in the self-illumination channel and a low gloss value in the reflection tab.
For the glass plane/mesh, just a simple glass material. Some slight fingerprints in the gloss slot would be good.

If the screen needs to emit much light into the scene, create another plane and position it where the main screen plane is.
Create a light material(button) of the self-illumination channel and add it to the new plane.
With composting tags on the meshes you set the light material to be invisible to the camera, main screen material no shadows casting, exclude standard mat from light mat etc.
There are also other methods like using the rayswitch shader or having just the light material as the base layer in a layer material and mixing the glass into another layer(though the glass mustn't be transparent) using a shader. (preferably fresnel)

That should be everything if I didn't forget something.

Btw, you can try out my CRT material. There I have settings for the materials that would also fit an (O)LED Display and a separate glass material for a thin cube that can be put in front of the screen(just enable it). If you're using the standard material as the visible screen, make sure to enable the reflections channel. I think this could be exactly what you're looking for.

https://www.corona-materials.de/en/material-library/special-effects/crt-screen/246