I'm having a problem with my balls...

[danb4026]

In the image below, you can see the glass balls hanging from the ceiling in the center.

 

The client thinks they look more like metal than glass. How can I better make them look like glass? In this image, I am using a thin geometry glass material with little to no refraction. I also tried a solid glass material, but it was even worse.

 

They are single faced spheres....no extrusions or shell modifiers.

 

Any help would be appreciated.

[Tim Nelson]

Got any reference images of what they should look like? Unless they are supposed to be solid glass balls, you need to have the outer surface of the glass and also an inner surface so it will refract properly. What renderer are you using?

 

It might also help to have a reflection environment outside to give your balls some more stuff to interact with.

[danb4026]

Here is an representative image from the web..

[Bruce Hart]

I think they look just like glass balls, and I like your render - nice work. Perhaps something to try (for the sake of your client) so that they do not appear like solid balls is use a falloff map in the opacity/refraction slot. This kind of thing could be achieved by the Fresnel activated in the refraction/reflection, but maybe the falloff map could provide the effect seen in the reference.

[danb4026]

Thanks Bruce and Tim for the advice. I just added a shell mod to get the glass material on both sides and am going to put a falloff map in either the refl or refraction slot and see what happens. I am rendering now and will show the results.

 

Thanks!

Edited December 8, 2009 by danb4026

[amer abidi]

yeah, shell it with a solid glass material; should do the trick. (But it will give you a very glossy glass ball, unlike the reference image you attached.)

[alias_marks]

adding an environment outside the window to have the balls refract besides the plain white exterior you currently have might help...

[erickdt]

Sorry to hear about your problem with your balls...

 

The issue is that you don't have refraction in your material (according to your post). Setting your refraction to pure or almost pure white with an IOR of ~1.6 will solve your problem.

 

E

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

I am guessing the shell corrected the problem.

 

Glass is always a pain, regardless of the type or kind... But anyway, what engine are you using? Attached is a reference image, and scene for Mental Ray.

 

The ball on the right is a solid glass material, the middle is a solid glass material with shell modifier, and the left is a thin walled glass material. These are the MR presets, with no modifications by me. Which is also why the glass is blue, it is tinted that way by default, but can easily be switched to clear.

 

The ball on the very right is going to render quite a bit faster than the other two. This is because it is using the thin wall setting in MR.

 

P.S. I had to delete the HDRI file for this scene to make it fit within the size limit, but you can go to Open Footgae, an download the one the scene is using for free.