How to acheive a wet look?

[Draise]

I would like to achieve a "wet" look and feel for various shaders - for a rainy scene or for a swimming scene. I have not much of a clue where to begin, I'm fairly new to SI - no formal training, etc.

I once remember somewhere, in a tutorial or article, that one could exaggerate specular highlights in the Render Tree to somehow make things appear wet, and with everything else, dull it down to make it look like it's saturated (in cloth?)

How do I get that wet gleam/sheen effect from wet objects?

Any tips/hints? What would you do?

Thanks for you time and tips in advance, appreciate it!

[Draise]

For example like the cloth here in the image above.

[Draise]

Figured out a cool wet look using some compositing and mixing two shaders, a water one with a "darker" mix node over the original shaders.



I rendered out the normal maps to bring in a little more "sheen" to the whole look of things. I also had quite high specular values.... what else? Not sure.. what do you think? How would you have done the wet effect?

I did something cheap in this one though, used a drop texture in composite for some extra droplets instead of doing it in 3D... I should learn more ICE so I can dynamically add droplets.. how would one do that?