Forum: Carrara


Subject: Help with glass

MaxBeckett opened this issue on Jun 26, 2003 ยท 7 posts


MarkBremmer posted Thu, 26 June 2003 at 5:19 PM

Sweet models Max. Lighting glass well is one of the toughest things to do whether you're 3d'ing or shooting actual photo's. The example above is by no means great but I can point out a couple of things in it. Lighting glass is never the same twice. Anytime glass is really close to something else, like a watch crystal, it's especially tough to light. Refraction is important. Instead of using the Index of Refraction in this instance (it exaggerates too much here) I simply used a Value Slider with 4 as the setting. Otherwise the Index of Ref. is great. I always like to use glass with thickness vs. a thin spline or vertex object; it distorts better on the edges. Also make sure that you have fairly bright highlights to. Here is where you will burn some time with area and sample renders. The glass needs something to reflect. This glass has a reflection value of 25. You can position stuff off camera or use a background image to help out. If you use off camera objects, build a shader with a bright glow to create something that will reflect so you don't have to mess around with extra lights to illuminate the off camera objects. Large cubes work great. Pagezone and Sfdex also bring up important points. Hope this helps! Mark