Blending two materials

[78finn]

I am trying to blend two materials together:

Blending an opaque white plastic into a transparent clear plastic (within the same single material).

I will then want to apply and control the material when applied to a single part.

I'm working with KeyShot Pro, so have access to the material graph, but have no idea as to how to go about achieving this.

If you can help, I'd really appreciate it!

[Finema]

Hi
Have you try Color Composite node ?

[78finn]

Hi there,
Thanks for the quick reply. I haven't know. Have you got an example of how to go about using it?

[Finema]

Hi
show us what texture you want to blend
and i gave you  an example

[78finn]

Well, its as stated...

White plastic and Clear Transparent plastic.

I don't have texture maps. Do I need them? Can't I simply combine two existing materials?

I'm used to using RenderMan, where this is very easy, literally one mouse click.

[mattjgerard]

Its really hard to guess at what you are trying to achieve. Are you saying that the object has 2 parts, like a translucent plastic with a clear top coat? or milky plastic with a shiny surface? It is possible that keyshot may not be able to do what you are looking for, but its rare to find someone on here that can't get the look they want. Layering of materials in KS is done a number of ways, using the labels, texture, opacity and bump add nodes in the material graph. If you can post an image or your project and an example of what you are trying to achieve we can take a peek at it.

[78finn]

Single part / one material

A material that seamless blends from an opaque white plastic to a clear plastic.

Sort of like the image attached (frosted glass to clear glass), but instead of going from a frosted glass to clear glass, I want to go from a pure white into a clear glass.

[ieatfish]

Like this?

This is a glass blending into a opaque plastic. I created the glass, then applied the opaque plastic as a label. I used a color gradient to fade the plastic and reveal the glass.

See attached for the image and bip.

edit: updated to be better.

[mattjgerard]

Yep, labels are the answer. I personally think that they should be called "layers" not "labels", as callign them labels restricts the thoughts of what one can do with them.  You can even drag any material from the library into the MatGraph to use as a label for your base clear glass.

[Will Gibbons]

Beautiful reference image btw, you know if it's a photo or rendering?

[78finn]

This is exactly what I was looking for thank you! I agree with the 'labels' description for doing things like this, its not exactly intuitive...but now I know that labels can be used in this way, it opens up many other possibilities. Thanks for the help.
Regarding the image, I think its a photo, not a rendering...I grabbed it from Google images.

[evilmaul]

I will add myself to the chore and also agree about the use of 'Labels' to do mixing....definitely unique compared with other 'graphs' out there and not intuitive in regards to mixing materials. Never understood the choice since it was firstly introduced few versions before

[bdesign]

As an alternate method to using Labels, you could map the Diffuse and Specular Transmission channels with Color Gradient nodes.

Cheers,
Eric

[TGS808]

As an alternate method to using Labels, you could map the Diffuse and Specular Transmission channels with Color Gradient nodes.

Awesome, perfection. (not a surprise coming from you) 

[bdesign]

Thanks very much, TGS808