Shell Material makes refraction alpha solid

[Sascha Selent]

Hi everyone.

I have a problem with the shell material. I use it for refractive objects - so for rendering I use a VRay-material and for the viewport-display a standard material. Now the refractive VRay-material affects shadows and all channels - but the refraction is solid with the shell material. If I assign the refractive material directly the alpha for the refraction is right.

This is also true if I use a VRay-material for the viewport display...

Any ideas?

Sascha

[vlado]

Yes, this is expected; the "Affect alpha" option of VRayMtl requires some special tricks which are not provided for in the 3ds Max API. V-Ray does not recognize the Shell material, so it has no way to get the extra alpha information.

Best regards,
Vlado

[wxyz]

Is there another workaround for seeing glass in the viewport other than using the edges?

[vlado]

Not for the moment; we could probably clamp the transparency for the viewport a bit, so that the material is never fully transparent, but I don't know if people won't complain in that case too

Best regards,
Vlado

[pjkw]

If I understand your problem correctly, I'd set the color of the refraction something other than white (black or some shade of grey), and pipe a vraycolor or something similar to the slot that has a white color. By default I think max will show the color, not the map in viewport.

[vlado]

It depends; if you use Realistic materials in viewport, the map might actually be shown...

Best regards,
Vlado

[Sascha Selent]

Yes, this is expected; the "Affect alpha" option of VRayMtl requires some special tricks which are not provided for in the 3ds Max API. V-Ray does not recognize the Shell material, so it has no way to get the extra alpha information.

Best regards,
Vlado

Okay. Thanks for answering.

[Sascha Selent]

Is there another workaround for seeing glass in the viewport other than using the edges?

Yes of course. I will go on using state sets to assign the proper material at rendertime...

...its a bit uncomfortable, but if you are familiar with state sets it is a good solution. Better the reassign manually before rendering.

And it is okay to use. Just prepare two materials, that one for the VP at default-state (non-recorded state) then create a state set, select the objects by material and assign the rendermaterial. Voilà.

But be a little careful, state sets do not like to have something deleted that was recorded - at least in max 2012...