Hello Hash Forums!

I need help creating a glass material. Radiosity takes too long for the render per frame, so I'm seeking a "cheat" to the effect of having glass in the choreography. The largest issue I've been having is getting a material to render so it looks like actual glass. Specifically I'm trying to make a sheet of tempered glass. So the edges are dark green and the face is clear with a slight blue tint to it. I'm working with the 2006 version of AM. If you want to see what I have thus far please ask. Please help.

Thanks

Try these settings:
Diffuse color: light blue
Specualrity Color: White
Spec Size: 25%
Spec Intensity: 100%
Transparency: 90%
IOR: 1.62 (Crown Glass)
Relfectivity: 20%

Mess with settings like that and you should get some good results. Note that IOR (Index of Refraction) takes a little longer to render.

Also an environment map can also be used for good reflections.

Photoman

Glass really isn't about radiosity, you don't need it.




All of CG, in all apps, since the dawn of time, is a "cheat". There is nothing real in any of it.





color the edges dark green and the faces light blue.


You can eliminate that step by showing it without making people ask.

Gee, thanks for the low level scarcasim to a post that was seeking help. I put "if you want to see, contact me" because some people are running on slow machines and don't really want to waste the time to download an image when the question can easily be posted without one for the moment.

the image took 5 hours and some change to render for one frame. I need a glass texture/material very similar to this image that will render in under 5 minutes per frame, as the animation is about 470 frames in length.

hope this helps and doesn't provoke more scarcasim from others.
@photoman - thanks for the suggestions

Sorry for the sarcasm, but anyone concerned about bandwidth has probably clicked on the "lo-fi version" of the forum long ago. We're here to see images.

That's a great looking image! I think 5 hours ain't bad. Trying to reduce that down to 5 seconds is insane but here's my insane attempt clocking in at 4.97 seconds:

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I didn't like the way the specular highlight anti-aliased so rendering double size for reducing the result back down in Photoshop gave a render time of 20 seconds.

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Both of those use a Z-buffered Kleig for the shadow which means it doesn't pick up the slight color of the glass. For that you need a ray traced light which bumps up the render time to 96 seconds

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That's my quick attempt to address the fundamentals of your problem. It uses no refraction since that's not a major issue with the appearance of flat panes of glass. Here's the PRJ. Just as I described above I used a blue material for the faces and a green material for the edges. I used the Glossy Specular plugin shader for the highlight but it's so small it probably didn't' matter.

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None of these approach the beauty of your image, but they DO retain the characteristics you mentioned and for most shots that would be enough. Given time I could probably think of low-impact solutions to get closer to your result.

But if your show is about detailed edges of glass you may have to get happy with detailed render times.



Edit: I see you wanted 5 minutes, not 5 seconds. Time to burn!

What you got there is an rendering of A:M? Does look very very photorealistic! I'd be happy to know the settings you used there...

*Fuchur*

Here's a more nuanced version that uses a gradient combiner to vary the reflectivity and color of the face of the glass in proportion to the angle presented to the camera much as glass would do.

46 seconds

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I decided the green edge was a bit too severe. This is flatter edges with 50% transparency instead of 25.

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Great test, Rob... and a great image from IS. You could try putting a slight tint to the Z buffered klieg's shadow, it defaults to black but you can alter that.

Thats the best looking glass Iv seen ,mind you its gonna fall and smash off thet one leg.Then your going to have tea allover the place

Thank you! Very good results for under 1min.

Michel