Translucent VEX node

Simulates a material with both reflective and refractive properties.

See also: Fresnel, Lighting Model, Reflected Light, Refracted Light

This operator simulates a material with both reflective and refractive properties. It returns the combined color, opacity, and alpha.

The index of refraction (eta) is the most important parameter because it controls the amount of the transmission (ie. refraction) of the surface. Its neutral value is 1. The environment color is ignored unless you specify a valid environment map. The reflection bias is used to help eliminate self-reflection, and is typically a small number.

In order to prevent the renderer from computing standard transparency (i.e. non-refracted transparency), as is the case with glass-like surfaces, the opacity must later be set to 1 to make the surface “opaque”. The alpha variable can be set to any value.

If the P, I, or N inputs are not connected, the global variables by the same names will be used instead. If connected, the incoming I and N vectors must be normalized.

See how to create an environment/reflection map.