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Semi-Transparency in Iray

AetherDream

AetherDream

Breathing Life into Characters
Contributing Artist
Firefly render.jpg

Okay, so here is the question-- How do I get semi-transparent materials in Iray. I am working on materials for the Gazebo and I wanted to do some Iray textures. Above is a render I did in Poser firefly. I want to be able to duplicate this kind of semi-transparent look on the windows with the leaves on a mostly clear glass surface in Iray. When I try to do this in Iray, I get great results with the metal and the marble surfaces, but no matter what I try, I get either solid windows as in the image below, or completely transparent with no hint of the leaves. Any suggestions?
Iray Issue.jpg
 
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Pendraia

Pendraia

Sage
Contributing Artist
Had to double check as I'm still getting used to the settings for Iray surfaces but you need to look for the cutout opacity setting. It should work similarly to the opacity dial on 3Delight surfaces.
 
AetherDream

AetherDream

Breathing Life into Characters
Contributing Artist
I went in and tried doing some different settings using the cutout transparency. I am not getting the results. I am also using a transparency map because I don't want the whole window to be transparent. I want the leaves to be semi-trans parent. I am not sure what I am doing wrong. I have tried adjusting the transparency map to where the leaves were 50 percent gray and the background was black. I have also tried it with a black background with white leaves. I am still not getting the right results because that setting just somehow makes all of it transparent. I think I will have to go back to the drawing board on this and start over with my settings on the window to see if some of my other settings are interfering with what I am trying to do. I would really like to do Iray for this because of the way the surfaces look with the textures, but I may just have too little experience and know-how to get the results I am looking for with it. I will try to see if I can make my 3delight textures look better, but the metallic shine is just not the same.
 
Pendraia

Pendraia

Sage
Contributing Artist
Have you played with the translucency setting? Maybe that would help...I wish I could help more but I'm not really familiar yet with Iray surfaces.
 
AetherDream

AetherDream

Breathing Life into Characters
Contributing Artist
Pendraia said:
Have you played with the translucency setting? Maybe that would help...I wish I could help more but I'm not really familiar yet with Iray surfaces.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the suggestions Pendraia. Iray is a bit of a mystery to me too. I will probably just stick with 3Delight if I can't figure this out in the next couple of days.
 
Lissa_xyz

Lissa_xyz

I break polygons.
Throw a daz studio basic primitive into the scene, apply one of the iray glass presets that come with studio by default, and take a peek at how the settings are done. Utilize similar settings to the areas you need to be see-through.

.. or just apply the glass preset to the areas and re-apply your maps to that shader.
 
phdubrov

phdubrov

Noteworthy
Contributing Artist
Is windows volumetric or just planes?
Cutout opacity is very harsh tool (99 vs 100 IS big difference), and it doen't scatter light.
IMO you need to play with refraction weight and translucency weight maps so glass will be more or less glass (high refractive weight) and leaves will be semi-opaque (low to zero refractive high translucensy).
 
Pendraia

Pendraia

Sage
Contributing Artist
Thanks for joining the conversation phdubrov...you know a lot more about Iray than I do.
 
Szark

Szark

Awesome
Yeah it does depend on a number of things with what you want in regards to looks. It is achievable but it will be a mini tutorial by the time I am finished and it is hard to advise when not seeing the maps concerned.

Are the thick Opaque gold looking parts Metal?
The rest Glass with small leaves in the glass but the leaves are not glass but need to be semi transparent?

To do all this we will need a
1:- Metalicity Weight Map B&W image (black not metal, white Metal)

2:- Gloss B&W Roughness Map (white being rough and black smooth as a mirror). This will define with Black for the Glass and a shade of grey for the Metal and the shade of grey will depend on how shiny you want the metal . But the diffuse map for the metal may need to be lightened first in Photoshop is you want a really high gloss metal. When using Metalicity in Iray the Gloss Weight and Colour will only work for the Black parts (non metal) of the Metalicity Map, not for the metal parts (White area of the map). Metalicity takes the gloss colour from the diffuse map for the metal.

3:- Opacity Map could go in to the Refraction Weight Channel but it again depends on what those leaves in the glass are in terms of transparency. Again Black is no refraction (Metal) and White full 100% refraction. Shades of grey in between.

Now if you want some colour in the glass or the leaves in the glass then above Gloss Weight is a switch to Share Gloss settings. Turn it OFF and you will get a Refraction Colour slot below the refraction settings. You can place a diffuse map say White for the more clear glass areas and green for the leaves in the glass.

All this will work with the right maps but it will take time to get the right balance of greyscale on all the strength maps.

With this method make sure the opacity maps in not in the cutout slot and set to 1.00
 
AetherDream

AetherDream

Breathing Life into Characters
Contributing Artist
Wow so many wonderful suggestions! Thank you Code and Szark. Gosh it is all pretty complicated and new.
@SzarkBased on your suggestion I made several tweaks to my maps. I looks like I got the got the transparency levels and the color I needed on the windows, and I am rendering it now to see what will happen.
 
Szark

Szark

Awesome
and where did a learn a lot of this, well watching Substance Painter tutorials and a lot of trial and error and more reading. LOL
 
Szark

Szark

Awesome
AetherDream said:
Wow so many wonderful suggestions! Thank you Code and Szark. Gosh it is all pretty complicated and new.
@SzarkBased on your suggestion I made several tweaks to my maps. I looks like I got the got the transparency levels and the color I needed on the windows, and I am rendering it now to see what will happen.
Click to expand...
How did you get on with this? Did it work or do you need more info? I am here all week, after that I will be in silent working mode. :)
 
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