Tips to make stained glass appear more realistic.

[evanmichalski]

Been trying to make a realistic stained glass curtain wall, however, been having a bit of trouble making it look correctly, but also some exposure issues from different angles specifically from the far ranged spot. The close up shows the detail all right, although I could use some guidance on what I could do in the material editor to give it a more accurate look. First the images and the settings:

 

 

 

 

Methods I've already tried were giving it fog, which didn't turn out like I'd hoped. Increasing the thickness of the glass surface didn't do very much at all (It's currently at .635cm), and the thicker I made them only increased the render time. I've tried different bump maps and found the normal map to work best so I stuck with that. Added a vraydisplacementmod which looks really good so I added that even though you can barely notice a difference when viewed from far away. And the colors from the images I'm using look too cartoony, especially when compared to reference shots from cathedrals I've seen online, so I don't know if there's a way on V-Ray where I can fix that or if I have no choice but to alter them in Photoshop.

 

And the other issue I'm faced with is when viewed from the longer shot. The HDRI sun I have over exposes out the glass entirely, and destroying the bump and dirt detail I added onto it. My concern is right now the illumination inside is perfectly how I want it, so knowingly if I start altering the glass some more to get it to look right I know it might ultimately change the entire lighting inside which I don't want to do of course. If there's nothing I can do about it, I understand I guess because I can fix all of that in post with the render elements and Photoshop, I'd just prefer to get it right in the render so I wouldn't have to fix it there, but more importantly I want to understand thoroughly what I can and can't do in terms of camera shots when pointed directly at the sun.

 

Any and all comments are welcome. Thanks.

 

Edit: I've got some odd mixed feelings here... on one hand, it's comforting to know that this is tricky question and nobody has responded so I don't feel so bad in dealing with this shader. But it is equally discomforting that nobody knows so far.

Edited February 19, 2015 by evanmichalski