Frosted text or image on Glass

[crho]

I'm trying to find the easiest way to get the effect of frosted text or photo printed directly to glass. I was able to fake it by putting a masked graphic image directly behind the glass with an opacity mask and semi-transparent but thought there might be a more accurate way to do this without making a duplicate plane.

 

Any thoughts? I am using 3dsMax 9.

[Justin Hunt]

Use a mask map in the transparency and refractive slot.

 

JHV

[crho]

Ok, Can I put on image in the diffuse channel of a glass texture in addition to the mask?

[Justin Hunt]

yes

[natalyam]

Would an image on glass cast a shadow?

[Justin Hunt]

It should if you have Transparent shadows set in the advanced rendering tab.

 

JHV

[Dave Buckley]

http://www.cgarchitect.com/vb/28461-glass-material-slot-determine-glass-color.html

 

check out this thread guys, the last post ha s a zip file on it, where i've done a test with text as an image on some glass, the image on there doesn't look too realistic but i haven't incorporated any hdr into the scene, it was just a glass decal test for arch and design materials in mental ray and could be what you are trying to achieve

 

hope it helps

[ramy]

crho,

If you are trying to create a frosted image on glass, make your image black and white and plug this into your refraction and/or reflection glossiness for the desired effect.

 

Putting this value map into your glossiness will tell the shader to change glossiness where the image (or text in your case) is on your glass. There's no need to put a map into the diffuse slot, unless you want it to look like something was actually taped or printed on the glass.

[ramy]

I just posted a blog on this topic. Check it out if you want to do frosted glass using the A&D materials.