hi, back again, and still sort of clueless on the Refract node. Does it substitute for Transparency, or what?

My test scene: ground plane, back wall, red cube to have an intersting object around, big cube which is going to change materials. Single infinite light, raytraced shadows, IDL on, raytrace bounces 12.

First material: everything off, refract only. No reflect, no fresnel. That's not good glass, but it supports a clear investigation. See screengrab (1), and render result (2). My conclusion is that the reflect node has a clever way of mapping the environment onto the object surface, but the object itself remains opaque as can be seen from the shadows. The solution of using refract with no transparency might work well with reflection/fresnel added and no direct lights, but to me it presents a dark and heavy glass look and feel. Refract does mimic transparemcy but it's not a substitute.

Render (3): transparency 100% and refract only. Now the shadows are sort of right but the transparency is dimming the refraction effect. Nice but looks too fragile, too transparent. Transparency and refraction are both sending their results to the render, which is too much and unbalanced as well.

Render (4): transparency 100% and no refraction. Just for illustration, with reflection its nice for window panes (archecural glass), but not what we're looking for.

Photo (5) what are we looking for? well, just an attempt, with the real thing so with reflection, fresnel and the 'cube' is not solid. From this I infer that I do need the transparency to handle the direct light but I also need a stronger refract effect than render (2).

So what about using the refraction slots in PuserSurface, and pumping up the Refraction value. Render (6) shows the result and screengrab (7) the material settings. That's something, shadows are not effected and refraction is increased, but how do I implement this for fresnel?

I'm still wondering. Your opinions please...

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