Rendering a Backlit Wall

[brendon_markham]

Hello everyone,

I have recently been working on a project for a client and discovered a new textured surface I'd like to start supplying for them and other clients going forward. I have created the material for it and utilized it with lighting the surface from the front, but I have discovered that the surface can be backlit, creating some unique lighting effects.

I am fairly new to V-Ray so I can't figure out exactly how I achieve this effect. Does anyone know how I would go about doing this?

Thanks

[iva_mancheva]

Hello, brendon_markham,

You need to add Translucency to the material in order for the light to pass through the surface. You can do this by adding a Translucency attribute:


Here I created one similar very simple example Backlit_Surface.zip . It contains a surface with Displacement and a Rectangular light with a Gradient texture under it. The material of the surface has Translucency attribute with Curvature texture, so that only the concave areas are translucent. Here are images with Translucency on the left and without Translucency on the right:


Let me know if this helps.

Kind regards,
Iva

[konstantin_chaos]

Hi brendon_markham,

What iva_mancheva suggested is a valid workflow.
However, if the surface is actually refracting and bending the light in the real world, using the V-Ray material's Refraction properties should also be explored.
If you share more references and details we might be able to assist more precisely.

Konstantin