Anyone got any good tips for creating a material (as simple as posible as it is for an animation!) which will simulate a glass/perspex material which will be applied to an entire model of a building? I want it to look like the building has been made out of transparent plastic.
The material should be pretty easy, but getting it to look nice and clean can be hard with complex models/shapes.
My tip would be to use a basic VrayMat with reflection (Fresnel) and 100% refraction, but be prepared to play with lower IOR values than the standards for glass etc in order to avoid it getting too crazy busy in there. I have also found that you really need very high reflect and refract bounces (like 30/20 or even higher) to get a realistic dielectric without too much solid colour (usually black) happening everywhere.
I have also played with Multi-sub mats where some of the backfacing or internal stuff gets a clear mat with an IOR of 1.0 to reduce the business that can happen.
Hope that helps.
b
Alot of the problem is also that many/most parts of your building won’t have thickness, unless you want your building to look like it’s been laser cut out of a solid block of perspex. Because of this, you’ll need an IOR close to 1.0 (so like 1.05 or something). Use that an a mixture of opacity and diffuse to get a lighter colour tint to it without blowing out rendertimes by resorting to more physically correct methods, which would involve applying a shell modifier to your building to add thickness.
Thanks for the tips. I have tried a number of these ideas, but haven’t really got a good result yet. To be honest, I am not really that suprised. I think I will have a re-think.