Rendering thick glass edges

[dbaldacchino]

Exposed edges of thick glazing don't render very realistically. I understand why...the vertical edges reflect the same amount of light as the vertical faces of glazing. However in real life that's not what typically happens on these cut edges. I'm attaching various renderings of the same area with different glazing material settings. "2 glazing materials" seems to be the best I can get, where the cut edges have a different glazing material painted on (5% reflectance) and the other surfaces have 37% reflectance. Both these materials have 1 layer of glazing.

By the way, aren't the layers of glazing supposed to darken the rendered output instead of lightening it? See the attached examples and notice how the 6 layer material is almost 100% transparent. Doesn't seem right to me. Also, if you have a better way of rendering exposed glazing edges, please post away. I'll be spending some time experimenting with the Generic Material instead.

[jeffh]

By the way, aren't the layers of glazing supposed to darken the rendered output instead of lightening it? See the attached examples and notice how the 6 layer material is almost 100% transparent. Doesn't seem right to me. Also, if you have a better way of rendering exposed glazing edges, please post away. I'll be spending some time experimenting with the Generic Material instead.

I brought the layers of glazing thing up with development about 3 weeks ago. So this has been logged and is being looked into how to correct this so it work in a more intuiative way.

The edge of glass thing I think will have to be done manually by painting a different material on the edge. As you have already done.

[dbaldacchino]

Thanks again Jeff! I'll have to see whether the same method has to be followed in Max or if perhaps there are more advanced techniques that wouldn't necessitate painting edges with a second material.

[sfaust]

Note that there are two different types of glass material, a glazing material and an actual glass material. From my understanding, the glazing material does not calculate refraction and effects like this (which saves a lot of render time and doesn't show up noticably on normal curtain wall glazing). The regular glass material does, however, produce refraction and is necessary for correct effects on thick or curved glass elements.

I haven't really done it, and it seems you have to play with the settings quite a bit to get it right, but I believe that's the idea of these two materials... someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

Edit: See attached image. the top shelf is the glass material with refraction. Notice the darkened edges and the block pattern displacement which are acurate to thick glass like this. The bottom shelf is the glazing material, which is simply transparent (and reflective although that doesn't really show up that much). Glazing material looks terrible in an application like this, even though it looks fine in thinner applications...

As a note, you may have to bump up the number of reflections and refractions in the render settings to get it acurate...

[mark.98140]

that's the beauty of a forum like this, someone somewhere will enevitably have dealt with an issue you have... not always is there a solution, but often there is a work around or definitive answer waiting... cheers to all whom particiapte!

[dbaldacchino]

Thanks Steve. I had actually tried that, but in my condition (outdoors and looking up), the reflections on the edges where actually even higher. I'm attaching the two results. I even tried different refraction settings but it didn't make the result any better. I'll try a material with less relfection, which unfortunately makes the underside look less realistic.

Thanks Mike...I agree that these forums are great, especially when instead of bickering, users put their heads together, come up with solutions and suggestions to make the product better! There's a lot of experts out there and we're lucky that some drop some of their knowledge in here

[cliff collins]

I think there is also a protein material called "solid glass"?
Maybe try using that?

cheers..........

[dbaldacchino]

Thanks Cliff. I tried that before posting here too, but the results were not satisfactory either.

[SkiSouth]

only using max or maxwell etc will address this issue I think. Probably a programming (turning on of ) sections of MR to properly render. Played around too, but no luck.