Showing Exterior Glass for Interior Shots

[MegaPixel]

Up until now, I've been ignoring exterior window glass and shutting it off completly for my interior shots. Now I would like to try to use it so I can see the slight reflectivity in my animations. However, my attempts so far have not worked out well. I'm using a fully refractive material (255rgb) with about 10% reflectivity on the window glass. When I render, the glass appears to be darkening the scene. But, if I exclude the glass from the Sunlight, it doesn't seem to behave correctly. Can I cheat this effect and just put a regular reflective material on the glass, then make it like 99% transparent in the obj. props? Thanks for any help - Dave

[percydaman]

just make the glass invisible to GI.

[MegaPixel]

I could have swore I tried that. I seem to recall this having a negative effect on the glass material but I'll give that another try. Seemed like the glass windows added tons of IR calc time to the shot?

I was wondering about another posibility. and it could be foolhearty, but what if I calc the IR map without the glass object, then turn it on for the final animation? Any speed advantages doing this way?

Thanks - Dave

[DaForce]

That is a common way to do it as well.

[percydaman]

that was the workaround before we had access to GI settings for individual objects.

[DaForce]

ah yeah, true.

Make my previous statement read.. that WAS a common method