I have been trying to reproduce this look in Houdini today. I would like a material that is transparent on surfaces facing the camera and a luminous opaque white on the edges of the surface as in the attached example. I would also like the surface to have a bit of refraction and specular highlights. I tried using the glass material and the ramp material but I have not been able to get anything that looks good. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
-Joe
How to make a transparent surface with bright white opaque edges based on the incidnece angle.
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- jlertola
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- robsdesign
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Hi, on the Mantra Surface shader, there is an Opacity tab with Opacity Falloff. This will give you transparency facing the camera. From there, you can adjust your refraction settings to either use the Translucency refraction model or adjust the refraction roughness.
You might also want to look into Faux Caustics (also on the opacity tab) or check that you have “all paths” selected on the Mantra render node.
hope that helps
Rob
You might also want to look into Faux Caustics (also on the opacity tab) or check that you have “all paths” selected on the Mantra render node.
hope that helps
Rob
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- jlertola
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Thanks Rob. But I am still struggling with this. I don't think Opacity Falloff is what I need. In the attached example you can see that Opacity Falloff does not provide any refraction. If I try to use just Refraction then there are no controls for edge opacity. If I try to use both Refraction and Opacity Falloff I get an odd double exposure look. What I would like to do is make two surfaces. One just refraction and one that is bright luminous white and then mix them based on the incidence angle. Is there any way to do that?
Thanks for any help
-Joe
Thanks for any help
-Joe
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- robsdesign
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Hi, without looking into the hip file, it looks it's reacting like a solid piece of glass but as you have a cube inside, the glass would also need to have an interior cube shape/cut-out for the cube to fit into. Using thin film refraction might solve this as it would then represent a bubble with a cube inside.
I've just upgraded to H16 and my current project has many refractive materials. Unfortunately, the change from SHOP to VOP (or MAT) has caused quite a mess with my scene and neither option is producing expected results. I would have recreated your scene to help but with all the issues I have with H16, it might confuse matters further.
I'm sure someone else will be able to offer some help though.
Rob
I've just upgraded to H16 and my current project has many refractive materials. Unfortunately, the change from SHOP to VOP (or MAT) has caused quite a mess with my scene and neither option is producing expected results. I would have recreated your scene to help but with all the issues I have with H16, it might confuse matters further.
I'm sure someone else will be able to offer some help though.
Rob
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- jsmack
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The Classic Shader Core can probably produce a similar image, but you will need to feed in a dot product falloff to the emission intensity. The example has full opacity, as the background appears warped, not faded.
set the classic shader for the outer sphere as such:
diffuse off
reflect objects off
reflect lights on
reflect roughness 0.1~0.2
refract objects on
refract lights off
refract roughness 0
ior 1.3-1.4 (maybe lower, the bending isn't that much)
fake caustics on.
emission on
emission illuminates objects off
connect an edge falloff to the emission intensity input.
I think this will get you mostly there.
set the classic shader for the outer sphere as such:
diffuse off
reflect objects off
reflect lights on
reflect roughness 0.1~0.2
refract objects on
refract lights off
refract roughness 0
ior 1.3-1.4 (maybe lower, the bending isn't that much)
fake caustics on.
emission on
emission illuminates objects off
connect an edge falloff to the emission intensity input.
I think this will get you mostly there.
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- jlertola
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Thanks jsmack,
I tried to follow your steps but I am such a beginner that I am still not getting it. The attached image shows how I have tried to implement your setup. I put the metal grate on the grid below the sphere because they removed the checkerboard material in Houdini 16. I am glad to know about the Classic Shader Core. I would like to set the index of refraction very low but it seems that if I try to set it below 1.1 the sphere object turns white. Also I am not understanding how to use the edge falloff for emission. When I connect it it seems to brighten the center of the object. I would like to be able to brighten the edges instead. But I don't see any controls to invert the effect.
Thanks,
-Joe
I tried to follow your steps but I am such a beginner that I am still not getting it. The attached image shows how I have tried to implement your setup. I put the metal grate on the grid below the sphere because they removed the checkerboard material in Houdini 16. I am glad to know about the Classic Shader Core. I would like to set the index of refraction very low but it seems that if I try to set it below 1.1 the sphere object turns white. Also I am not understanding how to use the edge falloff for emission. When I connect it it seems to brighten the center of the object. I would like to be able to brighten the edges instead. But I don't see any controls to invert the effect.
Thanks,
-Joe
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- jlertola
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