Real looking glass (yes, again)

[samuel_bubat]

The ugly thruth is.. a lot of glas looks like s*** in real world

[ValeroStudio]

Here is what you should be striving to achieve because it is a real photo of an interesting project with a good amount of glazing.

http://www.architizer.com/projects/m.../media/653701/
http://www.architizer.com/projects/m.../media/653709/

Interesting view to see through the glass.
Environment to be seen in the reflection.
Double panes create double reflection.
Slight coloration from Low-E coatings possibly.

[Lupaz]

Thanks Mathew. That looks like good glass to me. I wonder how long it took to the artist to make that glass to look like that.

Now, no offence, the following is a message for Chaos Group and chaos group only, as this is the main official support channel for their product V-ray, and I'm a legitimate user of their product.

For the last 10 years the following procedure is the one we used to create a material that mimics glass with Vray.

The procedure consists of the following steps using a generic vray material:

1- changing the diffuse color (optional)
2- changing the reflection color to white
3- checking the checkbox "fresnel".
4- changing the IOR value if necessary
5-changing "max depth" if things are starting to be seen as black on the reflection
6- changing the color in refraction to white or near white.
7- Changing the IOR value if necessary
8-changing "max depth" if things are starting to be seen as black on the refraction
9- checking "affect shadows"
10- Changing "affect channels" to get alpha
11- changing "fog color" if glass is other than pure refractive. In addition changing fog multiplier because usually a value of 1 is too much color.
12-render "render elements" of refraction and reflection for adjustments in post.

Are you developing a solution with less steps in the future?
I'm going to suggest possible answers not to be snobby, but to make it easier for chaos group and to try to get my message as clear as possible.

a. Chaos Group does not see a problem with the current workflow , nor other software that can do the job better/faster
b.We are aware of the frequent use of the material glass in some industries but we are not considering further development to ease the process of creating glass.
c. We are aware of the problem and we are working on new algorithms to improve the current version.
d. There are easier ways to create glass that you (user) don't seem to be aware of, and these are...
e. Other.

Thank you for your time,

[ronald_a]

Hey, just a quick thought. I'm not a Max user so I don't know if Max does have something like material presets, but in Maya I would simply create the material once and save it as a preset so you can easily skip 1-11 every time you need new glass.

Cheers,

Ronny

[peterguthrie]

what Ronny said, plus, I remember Torgeir back in the day had some scripted materials that had a more simplified interface http://vray.info/materialbeta.asp so it must be possible for someone to do something similar?

[ValeroStudio]

Thanks Mathew. That looks like good glass to me. I wonder how long it took to the artist to make that glass to look like that.

The images are not renderings, but photographs of a real project. My point was that this is what you are shooting for if what you are looking for is a 'realistic looking' glass solution. It reinforces all of the other things that have been mentioned, such as having a decent environment to reflect and the Fresnel affect. Glass is simple but a crappy model will make glass look like butt no matter what the settings are.

[samuel_bubat]

Honestly, setting up a basic glas material is probabely the single most simple thing to do. It´s exactly 3 steps.
You don´t even need to change the diffuse color to black when the refraction is set to pure white
and even the ior is by default set to 1.6 wich works for most glasses.
It´s simply reflection white, refraction white, fresnel on. Why would anyone on this planet need a simplified interface for that ?
Protip. If this is to difficult you can even save out a material library and even a standard material library that´s loaded everytime you start
max.

[Neilg]

This has to be fake, it's just too efficiently written - if you tried to write a rebuttal for each of lupaz's points you'd have a dissertation by the end of it.

[PIXELBOX_SRO]

Thanks Mathew. That looks like good glass to me. I wonder how long it took to the artist to make that glass to look like that.

Youre joking right? Youre obviously here because you want to piss someone off i believe.
How can you ask such questions? Did you read what he wrote? Its a photo!!

DADAL:
sorry ma but when i was a newbie i actually listened to people and was glad for their input....the guy is simply trolling.

[yyk]

I can't believe people are actually getting this worked up over nothing

Wanted to edit this in: Lupaz, for what it's worth I kind of understand what you're getting at. Sometimes when I try to replicate a photo I've taken, I feel like the contrast the original photo has between the surroundings and the sky isn't there in window reflections.. it's a matter of tweaking and the answer oftentimes lies elsewhere than in the glass material.

Maybe if you're trying to prove a point grab a renderer you feel has the "correct" feel and post some comparisons.

[Lupaz]

What's your point Pixelboy? or pixelbox.

Don't you realize that the only time I liked glass shown here, it was a photo?? his trick didn't work.
It backed-fire him. He thought I was going to criticize it and I didn't. I didn't because it's the only image where glass looks real.

In any case, is it too much to ask for a glass material just like mental ray, cinema 4d and maxwell have?

I'm disappointed with this forum. with vray 1.9 I remember more smart people AND much better response from chaos group and Vlado personally.
I'm sad to think that Vray's falling behind for the lack of developement. At least for architecture.
Vlado, are you still there?

[Sawyer]

Is what you are saying you want glass that is premade and works in every situation instead of having to do the 3-4 things you need to do make a glass material from scratch? You have a preconcieved idea that vray is somehow cheating or behind in making glass but I havent seen any evidence of it. Do a 1-1 test with mental ray and maxwell and vray and then present your findings.

[Lupaz]

V-ray IS cheating. And it cheats in the most clever way. That's why it's so successful. If you think it's not cheating, you don't know what you are talking about.

about the 3 or 4 things for glass...I also have other 3 or 4 things multiplied by 200 to do. If I can save time with software that does that for me, I'll be very happy.

About the 1-1 test, I did. But very few people see the difference apparently. Apparently we reached a realism such, that we require no more innovation/development.

[Sawyer]

You must be the most busy guy in the world. Too busy to figure out how to make your own material library? I never saw you do a test you just picked images said this is good this isnt. Thats not a test.

[samuel_bubat]

You know Lupaz, I will just assume you´re not trolling. The problem is you come here just saying Mental Ray makes better glass than Vray.
So if you want a serious discussion with serious answers. Just setup a simple scene where you can compare Vray Glass to MR to Maxwell and than let´s
see if we can spot a difference in case there is any. But you can never compare the correctness of two renderers by showing two different images.
That should be obvious, isn´t it ?

Regarding the "cheating". Every renderer is cheating and that is good, because we are artists and not scientists. Not cheating would mean you´d have to model
everything from atoms and shoot trillions of of light rays in every imaginable wavelength.. and after all you would still get just a RGB value on a monitor that´s
far from matchting realworld light intensity.

You can have hundreds of presets for materials and light setups and you´d still be missing another .. some millions. Believe it or not making a nice looking
image is a pretty tough job no matter how simplified interfaces or pre made materials are. If you don´t really understand the matter and have to rely on presets
than one will never be a good 3D artist. You can make one or even maybe 10 good images... but someday a customer will come with a job that can´t be
covered by something premade.... and you´re lost.