Object opacity

[Streetwise]

I'm working on a series of images where a desk needs to show 3 stages of height. What I've been doing is three separate renders and then compositing them to get the final result. For a project that has 80 different desks, that presents a LOT of images. So I'm wondering if there's an easier way to do it in one shot? Maybe put each height desk on a layer and then somehow adjust opacity? Otherwise, the only other way might be to adjust map opacity, but that would mean I'd have to create two additional sets of materials and change opacity on those. Does that sound like it might work?

[Alan Iglesias]

I would definitely go with a separate material for the transparent table tops.

There are a number of ways to accomplish this but in the below shot the transparent tables have just the same table material as the original material with a VrayColor map in the Opacity slot. Adjust transparency to taste with the color swatch.



Hope it helps,

-Alan

[Rens]

hi David, I'd use one material and then use a VRayUserColor map in the opacity. Here are the steps.

- Create the VRayUserColor map and plug it into your material's opacity slot.
- Set the VRayUserColor attribute field to say, opacity_col
- Now select all the objects that need full opacity and then under the right click -> object properties... -> user defined tab enter: opacity_col = 1.0
- For the transparent objects enter opacity_col = 0.5, or whatever value you want to have in there.
- Done! You can reselect and readjust the parameters if you need to, it will apply the user defined properties again to the current selection.

VRayUserColor will basically read the value you have set in the object's user properties and convert that to a colour. That way you can have many object variations with only one material.

[Streetwise]

Thanks Alan and Rens. I'll give that a whirl! I didn't know about VRayUserColor. Much appreciated!