How can I create a realistic glass material using Maxwell Render?
Bert Davis, UK
Anita replies I regularly create materials using the Maxwell Render plug-in for Sketchup, and you can also use Maxwell Studio, but for more complex materials requiring a higher degree of realism I use the Advanced Material Editor (MXED). MXED also allows for the quick editing of materials from the vast materials library found in the Resources section on the Maxwell Render website.
Before you start, it’s important to study the characteristics of the material you want to replicate. Here, you need to get familiar with the reflections and refractions in a wine glass in real-world scenarios. Another important element to consider is the lighting setup in the scene, as this will have an impact on how the reflections on the glass will appear.
In the final rendered image, you can see that environment lighting was used to clearly illustrate the reflections on the glass. Careful consideration was given to the positioning of objects in the vicinity of the wine glasses, and objects were deliberately placed behind them to demonstrate how objects viewed through such glass appear distorted. This increases the realism of the scene.
There are four main aspects to creating a wine glass material in MXED: specifying the transmittance (colour); specifying attenuation (transparency); setting the ND parameter to control the index of refraction; deciding on the surface properties, such as roughness. For all this, you need to understand the effects of the various parameters in MXED.
The transmittance parameter controls the colour of light when it passes through a transparent material, and therefore this must be a colour other than black. Whilst selecting a brighter transmissive colour will result in clearer transparency, remember that this setting is also affected by the attenuation parameter.
The Attenuation distance parameter allows you to specify how far light can move through an object before losing half its energy. For this render, an attenuation distance of 3cm was used. For realism, the ND parameter was set at 1.560 with Force Fresnel activated. Again, this ensures that the rendered result is physically correct.
Spend time getting to know how the various parameters in MXED have a direct impact on one another, and then when creating a material you can fine-tune the settings until you achieve the desired result.