Try this simple experiment. Go grab a five year old, and steal their bottle of bubbles. You know - the little red plastic vat of liquid soap. Pull out the hoop on a stick (technically it's called a 'wand'), blow some bubbles, ignore the crying five year old, and take a good look at the way the bubbles look. See the rainbow looking thing?

That's what iridesence looks like...now give the kid back the bubbles.

Iridesence can also be used to create the look of other 'filmy' things, like oil slick, or for the insides of an oyster. It's even a cool alternative to a fractal noise type of pattern for some surfaces.

Iridescene on a semi transparent surface It's Bubblicious!!!

Much of the time, you'll probably be using Iridescence on semi-transparent surface, but that's a lousy way to really see the effects of different settings. This is the kind of plug-in where a picture is worth a thousand words, so you can see the settings.

 

How much of the effect is applied.

Left - 50% Right - 100%

Left - 25, Right - 50	Left - 50, Right - 100

Lower sizes produce an effect that may not be real iridescent looking, but are still real neat and potentially useful.

Left : .025, Right : .05	Left - .125, Right - .25	Left - .5, Right - 1

Left - .25 Right - .5	Left - 1 Right - 2	Left - 4 Right - 8

(not to be confused with LightWave Lengths)

You can control the way the different light wavelengths effect the iridescent surface. The three Light Wavelengths numbers represent the Red, Green, and Blue values. The default settings are realistic - they are the way light works on here on good ol' Earth...but who wants THAT kinda limitation.

Left : R : 0.7 - G : 0.52 - B : 0.48	Left : R : 0.7 - G : 0.52 - B : 0.48
Right : R : 0.48 - G : 0.7 - B : 0.52	Right : R : 0.52 - G : 0.48 - B : 0.7

 

As mentioned in the intro, Iridesence can be used in all sorts of ways. The next image shows the effect applied to pretty much every surface in the picture.

Sure, it's overkill and maybe I've listened to too much Grateful Dead, but I kinda like it. The floor is a fractal pattern with Iridesence applied on top, the spheres have a crumple map applied and different base colors. This is one of those areas where you need to experiment - the main surface color that you select is important, because it provides the base color - you get more 'tie dyed' looking patterns if you apply a fairly dark but vibrant base color. Have fun....