Ice is another difficult shader to perfect in the 3D world. If you were to take the time to see how ice looks, you'd find it to be a very complicated form of light and shape. Thus imparing us to get a perfect match in the rendering world but we can close with new techologies and using micropoly displacement. However using using micropoly displacement can create circumstances we may not want in certain areas. This tutorial has been split into two parts, today well discuss the inner core of the ice. We can simply use PiXELS3D to do this. However we may want to set up our modeling for tempest which I will discuss later.

This tutorial requires:

Pixels3D | studio | v3.6 and above
ShaderMakerPro 1.0

To start we need to use either SM 3.0 or SMP 1.0 to create the shader. If you're using SMP, use the example on the right, using the exact values, nodes, and links, then save it out. If using SM in PiXELS3D create a Shapes>Cube then CMD-w to open SM. Follow the image on the right for values, nodes, links.

Edge Blend - into the opacity, here we can set it so the edges are more transparent than the space between.

fBm - Bump.

Granite - into displacement, here we can control the "fur" like frost.

We already have a cube-like shape for the outside; now we need another shape to emulate the mass of our cube. For this im just using another cube and then setting its U & V Basis to B-Spline in Object Info. Then Control>Scale it smaller along the z axis like pictured on the right.

Rendering it should produce the image on the right.

In the lower right corner, I pointed out the potential artifacts from the render using raytracer for the Refraction. Unfortunately this problem is not quickly fixable using the method I explained, because the raytracer only refracts back the actual inner shape. To get around this, you would have to experiment with the refraction values of the hull's shader, which is someting to spend some time on.