Having a hard time getting a good read on glass and water materials, looking for any advice the forum can offer. Reference and test render attached.
*ground texture not to scale
Basically I am tinting the glass slight green and the water slight blue, but the problem seems to be in the glossiness of the glass surface and the glossiness of the water.
Decreasing the refraction glossiness of the water too much creates a gel-like appearance in terms of reflectivity, making the solution appear more solid than it should.
It would be nice to emulate the condensation that is blurring the surface of the glass, but I have yet to find a solution. Perhaps a glass map will do the trick?
I experimented with the velvet shader to imitate the effect, but to no avail.
I spent some time researching techniques for rendering liquid / glass interface and it seems to be something that is avoided. There are plenty of pristine product renders of perfume, whiskey, vodka, etc. but few with actual surface detail, almost none with water, and I did not find any with soft condensation - not water droplets.
I am glad you liked the test renders, although I felt that they fell short of the photo reference (DRC01087.JPG). That being said, I do agree ‘test2.png’ is a more faithful representation than ‘test.png’.
Thing is, that now you’re getting physically incorrect reflections and refractions. That might explain why you’re struggling to recreate photo reference.
I have to say, I have dialed in just about every reasonable permutation of parameters to try and emulate the surface depicted in the reference image, it is just very complex.
Ignoring the fact that the texture set I created is not an accurate description of the reference in the first place, there are a number of factors that complicate the matter further. Primarily the fact that any bump or gloss offset will dramatically alter the translucency, creating something that looks more gel-like than glass.
I am willing to acknowledge that the render does not portray a physically accurate surface, but I would contend that it is at least lifelike in some respects.
i think if you want soft condensation without droplet you also do not need it in bump slot as small details in bump gives more glossy look in reflection what may interfere to glossy map.
sharing scene will give to users for experiments
hmmmm, you could try adding some subtle width variation of the inside glass faces and increasing the thickness near the bottom and the top a bit more. See if that makes it look closer.
Yeah, deforming the inner faces with some noise might be a good idea. I did, however, apply a noise to the bump channel of the water body, which helps to create a similar effect.
Something I haven’t tried is creating a car paint-like shader to create a layered effect, but I know that would increase the render times even more.