Transparency vs. Refraction depth?

[duke2]

I've never quite understood what the difference is between the Max Transparency levels (default 50) and refraction. I changed Max Trans to 1, but it didn't seem to affect what I could see through glass surfaces.

[vlado]

The max. trasparency levels are only for materials that have opacity mapping.

Best regards,
Vlado

[duke2]

The max. trasparency levels are only for materials that have opacity mapping.

Best regards,
Vlado

I thought that might be the case - thanks. I was actually able to pull the rendertime of this scene down substantially (alot of opacity mapped foliage) by tweaking the depth and threshold

[trick]

Max.transparency levels could help (by setting it to a very high level) if you make a very complex object invisible to the camera and have renderartifacts when you look through this "invisible" building. Example: making panorama's out of this "invisible" building !