Material for skylights industrial/commercial building

I’m trying to create a material for skylights you’ve in mostly industrial buildings. From the outside they appear not really transparent but they do let quite some light through.

I looked at a lot of pages but they were mainly for old versions of V-Ray and for example this image I just edited the refraction glossiness to 0.5 which does give a nice blur but not the white tint needed. I also tried to create a two-sided material with a layer of white on top of glass but don’t seem to get it right. Also experimented much with fog but maybe it’s the values I use but can’t get close to what I want. Also tried just to take a ‘plastic’ and change the opacity but that doesn’t seem the right way either.

Maybe a V-Ray oracle here can give me some advice what the best way is for such material. Basically it’s quite opaque (so you won’t see all dirt I guess) but does let a lot of light through.

Thanks in advance!


Hello @OzBoz ,

The material used for industrial skylights is usually fiberglass or polycarbonate (they look identical). I suggest you to try with the Polycarbonate library material, it is located in the Glass Category in the Material library. If you find it to be too reflective you can reduce the Reflection glossiness and it will appear more white.
Please let me know if you get the desired result.

Kind regards,
Iva

Hello, Oscar,

One trick I can think of is duplicating the back surface of the skylight panel and moving it up a bit to place it into the panel’s geometry. Then apply to the surface a Two sided material (with a close to white color Generic material for the Front and Back) and play with its translucency (you can leave the polycarbonate material of the skylight geometry as it is in your scene or maybe make it a bit more reflective if you wish).
This way the material appears even more white:

Kind regards,
Iva

Nice! Thanks, looks like a nice solution, gonna try!