KeyShot Forum

Technical discussions => Materials => Topic started by: shadowmodel on May 29, 2020, 04:30:44 PM

Title: Magic Material (Multilayer Optics?)
Post by: shadowmodel on May 29, 2020, 04:30:44 PM
Hey guys, I'm trying to achieve this magical window material (see attached images) where the glass is reflective silver on the exterior, but still transparent on the interior. My guess is this would best be achieved with a multilayer optics material? Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Title: Re: Magic Material (Multilayer Optics?)
Post by: TGS808 on May 31, 2020, 01:57:27 PM
The windows on both of your example images look transparent from the exterior as well as the interior so, maybe I'm misunderstanding what you want. But... if you want it, as you said, reflective on the exterior and transparent on the interior you can try this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2iQiycb3OU

Note, that Esben was doing this in KS6. You can still do it in KS9 but turning on the experimental features is no longer a checkbox like in this video.

To turn them on in KS9:
Open the ks9settings.xml in the resources folder with notepad. Then search (CTRL+F) for "experimental" and change the value from false to true. (<experimental_features bool="true"/>). Save that file and then close it. When you start KeyShot, the Surface Backside Mask utility will be available in the material graph.
Title: Re: Magic Material (Multilayer Optics?)
Post by: shadowmodel on May 31, 2020, 02:51:15 PM
Hey TGS808,

Thanks for the bit of advice on how to do it in KS9. I did see the tutorial Esben Oxholm put up on youtube regarding this. You're right, I need to clarify: I meant reflective not as an absolute quality of the material, but rather a characteristic. I'm sure you've seen window panes where the exterior is dominantly reflective, but not absolutely/opaquely reflective. Windows, where, like the examples shown, you can still make out the objects inside, though not as if it were completely transparent. If you do a search on Google images for "Mercedes f015," you'll notice the main front window is transparent in contrast to the side windows, where the glass is more like privacy mode glass.

Esben's video is fantastic, but I was wondering if there was a way to make the material not 100% opaque reflective, but reflective with the ability to see through it.

Hope this clarifies things. If this isn't possible, I hope Keyshot builds this quality into subsequent updates. This material will be coming up a lot more on everything from products to spaces in the future. For now, I guess we'll just have to do with two separate passes of the material and adjust in photoshop in post.

Thanks again for taking a look at this!
Title: Re: Magic Material (Multilayer Optics?)
Post by: bdesign on May 31, 2020, 03:18:01 PM
Hi shadowmodel-

Check out reply #4 under this thread:

https://forum.keyshot.com/index.php?topic=21165.msg89932#msg89932You

Cheers,
Eric
Title: Re: Magic Material (Multilayer Optics?)
Post by: shadowmodel on May 31, 2020, 04:14:37 PM
Thank you, bdesign! This was exactly what I was looking for. Really appreciate your time and thoughts on this. Many thanks
Title: Re: Magic Material (Multilayer Optics?)
Post by: bdesign on May 31, 2020, 04:22:39 PM
You're welcome. Glad it was helpful.

Cheers,
Eric
Title: Re: Magic Material (Multilayer Optics?)
Post by: TGS808 on May 31, 2020, 05:57:20 PM
I like that this entire thread played out nearly identically, two years ago. : ) Esben even pointed to the same video of his that I did. Lol. Though I don't seem to see you here as often as I used to, Eric, it's nice to know you're still out three.
Title: Re: Magic Material (Multilayer Optics?)
Post by: shadowmodel on May 31, 2020, 06:13:55 PM
Yea I feel like a real newbie on this on TSG808. Eric, thank you for being a hero again. Many thanks to everyone here. I'm super grateful for all of your help
Title: Re: Magic Material (Multilayer Optics?)
Post by: Berube on May 31, 2020, 10:35:40 PM
Hi there,

You can always do a "Chrome Material" plugged in as a label on a "Glass Material".

Hope this helps!

-Berube

Attached, the gold chrome, the glass material, and both combined using the label slot.
Title: Re: Magic Material (Multilayer Optics?)
Post by: shadowmodel on June 01, 2020, 12:16:38 PM
Wow, Berube! This is also a really neat trick! Thank you for sharing your examples