Morten Jæger shows a couple of ways that you can create a realistic microscopic shader with a V-Ray shader in Maya. Morten demonstrates a couple of methods that can easily get you the X-ray edge outline look needed for a convincing look in Autodesk Maya.

What you can do with this [sampler info] node isn’t limited to this

One method for creating the microscopic shader uses the V-Ray material and the V-Ray Fresnel texture to create the effect. The other method uses the old standard, the Maya Sampler Info node which can be used to create and edit edge effects based on a camera’s facing ratio in Maya.

You can only get so far with 3D rendering. The tutorial continues to take a look at creating post effects with Photoshop and explores a few different techniques to that can take the microscopic shader project to the next level in term of realism.

Check out the tutorial and project files over at FlippedNormals.com: Microscopic Shader with V-Ray for Maya here.