Trouble creating the paper material for a Japanese Lantern (3ds max, 2sided material)

[Mokiki]

I am currently trying to model a lantern for a 3d scene I am working on. And the 2sided material is giving me a bit of a trouble.
I am trying to get the specific effect in seen in the lantern_ref.jpg The part where the light bulb on the inside is closer to one side and creates the white to orange to red bright spot transition.


For my 3d model I modeled basically the top and bottom plastic parts the paper layer and the wooden rings on the inside.
If my material color is white I get the seen effect in the reference (minus all the texture details or glued together parts which I didn't add yet)


But when I change the material color to a red tone everything falls apart.


The bright spot seems to disappear and the whole thing appears to be more evenly lit.
Anybody has any advice for me on this? I feel like I am missing something really simple here.
I need to crank up the light intensity by a lot (x100) get something similar but way more washed out.
While the ref shows the effect blurry but also somewhat clear? Like the paper is almost see through.

[fixeighted]

I'm sure someone will come along with an optimal setup but in the meantime here is something which might work for you.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/504jpqu5c5...LIGHT.max?dl=0

I didn't use a 2-sided mat, just a standard material with a little refraction, some SSS translucency, using shelled geometry.
You can also try with just the 'thin walled' option together with a little refraction on either shelled or non-shelled geometry.
Seems to work ok...

[Mokiki]

First of all thank you for taking the time to whip something up. That is extremely appreciated. Sadly I can't open the file since I use an older version of 3ds max at the moment (version 2020).
Would it be possible for you to save it and re-upload in the 2020 format?

I have to admit I didn't try the refraction/sss route yet so I am very curious how your attempt worked out.
In my head I figured if I completely rely on the 2sided material with maybe an opacity and translucency map I could add the imperfection and glue parts easier in the end. But now thinking about it's probably similar even with an sss approach.


*edit*

After you pointed me in the right direction and a bit of fiddling on my own I think I've gotten something that I am relatively happy with and can further tweak once I am done texturing.
Thank you a lot for the help

[fixeighted]

Your result looks good I reckon, if you are still maintaining your required paper colour and with non-extreme light values.
Will be interesting to see the end result