Label applications on Clear (Glass or Plastic) materials

[ldichiara]

Hi All..
I wanted to throw this out to the community to see how others tackle and/or approach this issue...
When it comes to rendering - I do a lot of bottles - usually constructed out of clear glass or plastic. A challenge that frequently comes up is when applying a label - (in many cases a logo) more often than not I get a doubling effect which is undesired and not what I want as a final output. This is because of the front and back surface of the material and how it is treated.
One approach I have used is to apply a different color to may external surface in my CAD application (Solidworks) so when it comes into keyshot it is treated as a different surface OR I will go to my material graph and apply an occlusion setting on the material to pull back the doubling effect that way.

In both cases, I think there are tradeoffs and was wondering if anyone else does this differently or had a better approach. This usually presents itself with direct logos applied to glass or plastic like you would see on a liquor or cosmetic bottle application...regular "labels" are fine.

L

[INNEO_MWo]

Attached you'll find a scene with 3 labels on a solid glass.
The top label is mapped planar with a depth of 0, so you'll see it on the backside and in a reflection, as well.
The middle one has a depth of 0,01 (mm), so it is only noticeable in the inner reflection.
The bottom label has an experimental feature (Ray mask) applied, so that is not visible in the reflection. But if you move the camera on the back, you won't see the label.


Hope that helps

CheerEO
Marco

PS: written in short form, see attached scene for detailed information.

[DerekCicero]

Here is a Quick Tip we just posted on this topic. Subscribe to our YouTube channel as we post these every week.

KeyShot 10 Quick Tip - Adding Textures and Materials to Labels

[ldichiara]

Thanks Marco - so you are saying to try using planar mapping even on a cylindrical surfaces?

[INNEO_MWo]

You can use the cylindrical mapping as well.

Attached you'll find a scene with 2 similar solutions.

   
• The red label should show the problem and is noticeable on the inside of the glass.
• The white label in the front has a ray mask (experimental feature) applied, to cut off the inner projection.
• The green label on the opposite side has an occlusion mask applied to get the same result as the white label.

But the surfaces of the glass body are not split.

Hope that helps to find your best practice.

CheerEO
Marco

[ldichiara]

Marco
This is great. Thank you. I've been using an occlusion mask but I wasn't sure if it was compromising the overall visual as it seemed to have compromised the quality of the logo but it may be that that is not the case.

One last question - I'm on Keyshot Version 10 - and I don't see the experimental features checkbox in the preferences where it used to live; do you know where the toggle settings are to turn it on or perhaps it's incorporated already in the latest version to get the ray mask feature.

Thank you for the help.

Lenny

[INNEO_MWo]

Hello Lenny.

To activate the experimental features, just follow some simple steps:
- Close KeyShot
- Open the ks10settings.xml from your resources path with a text editor
- search for "experi" and you'll find the parameter <experimental_features bool="false"/>
- change the value into <experimental_features bool="true"/>
- close and save the ks10settings.xml
- restart KeyShot

In the material graph you'll find the ray mask as a utility node.


CheerEO
Marco

[ldichiara]

Thank you for this Marco. Appreciate the help!

Best,
Lenny

[tomlai]

Does the "ray mask" work the same way in GPU Mode?
I am able to see functionality in CPU mode and not GPU mode.