Thin Film Shader

[KernitTheFont]

Hi Devs,
I noticed the Thin Film shader isn’t supported yet (annoyingly I needed to use it today). I just wondered if you had it on the roadmap and when we might be getting it roughly?
Thanks,
Tim

[shaio]

Hey @KernitTheFont ,

What are you trying to achieve and you need the Thin Film shader for? What is the final result you’re looking for? Depending on the case V-Ray might have a better alternative and better way to achieve the effect.

[KernitTheFont]

Just trying to get the soap bubble look for a pitch visual:

I ended up just using an oil slick image in the reflectance channel which seemed to work for what I needed:

Also useful for headlight glass:

[shaio]

The V-Ray Material has a “Refract Thin Walled” parameter under the Refraction group that would enable SSS and make the refraction to be calculated differently for thin surfaces like the bubble you’ve shown in the example. If you use this parameter combined with a different color/texture for the Reflection and/or mix it with more color/textures in the Coat group alongside different IOR values, you should be able to achieve some interesting results. I would recommend playing with it. It is also useful for creating leaves, curtains etc.

Here is a quick example that I rendered to quickly showcase what could be achieved with this.

[KernitTheFont]

Thanks Shaio, I’ll definitely look at this. However, the Thin Film shader was super quick to use – add the shader, pop a noise into the texture and then all you need to tweak is the thickness setting and noise scale. Will support be brought back at some point?

[YunalZobu]

Hey @KernitTheFont , do you think a similar setup might work for you - single texture, refraction + reflection - for final production I’d probably just slightly animate the pattern, too.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1H7x…TJ12bARC6/view

[ele_efe]

@shaio

The V-Ray Material has a “Refract Thin Walled” parameter under the Refraction group that would enable SSS and make the refraction to be calculated differently for thin surfaces like the bubble you’ve shown in the example. If you use this parameter combined with a different color/texture for the Reflection and/or mix it with more color/textures in the Coat group alongside different IOR values, you should be able to achieve some interesting results. I would recommend playing with it. It is also useful for creating leaves, curtains etc.

Here is a quick example that I rendered to quickly showcase what could be achieved with this.

Hey!, Could you can share your setup for this effect?
Thank You!