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I don't know if this is technically possible, but, it would be useful if there was a way to do a simple opacity mapping that doesn't involve advanced raytracing functionality such as refraction. While raytraced transparency is great for achieving high realism of glass and similar type surfaces, there are times when perhaps all you want is to do is have an object be uniformly 45% transparent.
Or pehaps you want to map a tree with opacity map on a plane and have the background of image clipped out.
Or perhaps... it could be used as a texturing technique, where in some cases the fastest way to add more detail to surface (proceduraly mapped, or combination bitmap and procedural) might be to add a simple opacity mapped plane, slightly offset from the surface, without having to deal with multiple UVW maps and multi-sub object materials. Another benefit might be that you could have it cover several separate objects continuously and not have to worry about seams.
I realize that this can be done through Refraction mapping in Vray material, or regular opacity mapping in Standard material, but the speed bump is considerable when compared to scanline rendering, I assume due to tracing the light properly in real world terms as it passes through the surface. Having several big transparent objects on the screen, or a lot of small ones, slows the rendering down considerably, making it impractical for liberal use.
So basically, this simple opacity would be a hack, that does nothing more than uniformly show the background objects through the surface, depending on the value of opacity color (0-255) or image map.
Or pehaps you want to map a tree with opacity map on a plane and have the background of image clipped out.
Or perhaps... it could be used as a texturing technique, where in some cases the fastest way to add more detail to surface (proceduraly mapped, or combination bitmap and procedural) might be to add a simple opacity mapped plane, slightly offset from the surface, without having to deal with multiple UVW maps and multi-sub object materials. Another benefit might be that you could have it cover several separate objects continuously and not have to worry about seams.
I realize that this can be done through Refraction mapping in Vray material, or regular opacity mapping in Standard material, but the speed bump is considerable when compared to scanline rendering, I assume due to tracing the light properly in real world terms as it passes through the surface. Having several big transparent objects on the screen, or a lot of small ones, slows the rendering down considerably, making it impractical for liberal use.
So basically, this simple opacity would be a hack, that does nothing more than uniformly show the background objects through the surface, depending on the value of opacity color (0-255) or image map.
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