How to Render Colored Glass which is STILL Transparent???

[kristen24]

I am trying to render my architectural model which I made in Maya with different colors of glass panels which render out transparent or at least translucent so you can see inside. If anyone has been successful with this pleaseeeeeee help me. I placed lights inside my model in maya so that they would help shine through, but this only makes the color I chose for the glass brighter while maintaining more of an opaque visual effect. I have a studio final in a few days and I really need to show a nice rendering which does this. Thanks so much.

 

- Kris

[Peter M. Gruhn]

Spend your time improving the design ;-)

 

The frst thing that comes to mind is wondering if your model is to scale. Maxwell is very keen on knowing how big stuff is. One reason is because light absorption in materials is specified with actual units of distance. So if you think your glass should be pretty clear and absorb only (guessing numbers here) 1% of light over 1" and the glass in your model is 10' thick you're looking at 30% transparency for what you may intend to be a 0.25" pane of glass.

 

That points to the next issue - once you are sure that your units are correct check the material definition for what numbers it is using for the various transparency and scattering etc. effects. Also, iirc, there is a units setting for those. For example, it may say (making stuff up again (hey, I don't have it open right now and am in the middle of a render so I can't be experimenting)) "primary forward absorption: 0.25" and somewhere else it may say "units: mm". And if you were expecting inches and it thinking in mm you'll find your glass much more opaque than you think it should be.

 

Also check not just the numbers and units on all those, check for meaning. You want more clear so you don't want a lot of scattering, you don't want a lot of surface roughness...

 

Make a demo scene, wit similar sizes and needs as your real scene and a piece of geometry with varying thickness (like their trough sample or a wedge) so you can see the effect of the parameters and maybe get a hint if you miss but are close "darn, I could have sworn it would work at 1.0... oh wait, the very thick end of my geometry is showing something, I must be close".