reflections on glass

[dcauldwell_cg]

I've been struggling to get a balance between reflections off glass (windows). I either get lots of transparency and very little reflection OR lots of great reflection and no transparency.
This test got quite close to what I was trying to achieve, but now I have this pattern appear. Any ideas whats going wrong here?


here are my settings



Thanks

[dalomar_cg]

Re: reflections on glass

Well, from your screen shot I expect you may be trying to adjust the reflections in the wrong way. The reflection value you have set as very dark, but there is a map in the slot, so whatever you set that value to will not have any influence. There is 99% chance that the map you have in the reflection slot is Fresnel. If not change it to fresnel and you will notice two rows with a color and IOR value for each row. Basically the white color is the maximum amount of reflection possible and the black color is the least amount of reflection possible. For architectural glass I generally darken the white color slightly (to 220-230 maybe) and brighten the dark color as well (maybe 30-50). With those settings the glass never becomes completely reflective, like what your experiencing, but also it prevents the glass from appearing so transparent that it "disappears". The IOR value should be the same in both cases and for glass you should leave at the default of 1.55. Try that and see if it works better for you. You never want to have a solid color in the reflection slot for glass because it will severely change the reflection characteristics of the material and it won't look like glass.

[dcauldwell_cg]

Re: reflections on glass

Dalomar
Thanks for the info. Your settings have worked a treat, and the results just what I wanted (see final render/montage below). It really helps, knowing what the actual settings are doing, rather than fumbling around on a trial and error, and guessing, basis.

David

[nomeradona_cg]

Re: reflections on glass

dcauldwell,

very good effect. did use PS for the grass foreground? the refelction is beleivable.

dalomar, thanks for that, it was actually my question before. now i can play again this software, joe just gave me a temporary serial.

[dcauldwell_cg]

Re: reflections on glass

Thanks for the comments. The grass foreground and the plants are already there in the base photograph. It is the rendered sketchup model that is 'feathered' in.

[nomeradona_cg]

Re: reflections on glass

clever. very good montage.