material problem

[kpavlov]

I have to render shoping mall and the problem is area that is closed from all four sides but has opening upon and you can see sky. Forgot the word for it but imagine box without top side where the light is comming from.
The top side has to be thin fabric that allows light to enter inside but not direct light or maybe its combination of direct light and ambient light but scattered around and there is no sharp shadows.
Above that fabric material there is metalic construction that holds it and casts shadows on fabric which are visible if you look from inside of the building.
So the problem is how do I make such material.
Any ideas.
Material that is no transparent but lets the light through and has shadows on it from construction above.

Something like this on photo

[priad]

have you try to put a glossy refraction with ior of 1.0. I think it could be solve this pbl.

[flipside]

I needed the same thing on a recent project.

I used translucency. Make a near white material, turn on translucency, change refraction color to almost black (35). Set glossy to 0.9 (everything works, as long as it's not 1). Set glossy subs to 20.

Change the fog color to a light grey and set multiplier to 0.5.

Play with the diffuse color and translucency light multiplier to get the desired look in your lighting condition. Note that if this is your only light entering the room, it will need very good GI settings...

You're probably better of by making the material but faking the light coming trough by a vray light underneath it.