Fabric lamp shade

[jbomb]

What settings would you need to have an almost fabric exterior but also to give it some translucency so you can see a light shinning from within?

[Brian Townsend]

Hi Jbomb,

I would suggest using the advanced material and using the following steps to get the light shining through.

First, assign an emissive material to a sphere inside the lamp shade.  Choose a desaturated warm orange/yellow to simulate lamp lighting.  Ensure 'detailed indirect illumination' is enabled under the 'realtime' tab.  If you want the light to affect the ground plane as well, turn on 'ground indirect illumination'.

Then assign your fabric texture (www.cgtextures.com is an amazing free resource) and set the material type on the lamp shade to 'advanced'.

Next, increase 'specular transmission' to a very dark gray to add a subtle level of transparency.

Then, increase 'roughness transmission' pretty generously which will add roughness to the interior of the geometry and simulate light scattering. This will diffuse the direct light source.  To increase the affect of light scattering across the shade increase 'diffuse transmission' and set it to a dark version of the color you set for your emissive material. 

You can apply bloom under 'realtime' to add a subtle glow around the light as well. 

When it comes to rendering, I suggest using 'realtime render' to get the best results with the emissive.

Here is a screenshot and example scene (texture provided by www.cgtextures.com) for reference.

Hope this helps, please let us know if you have further questions.

Brian

[jbomb]

Hi Brian,

Thank you very much for spending the time to reply in such detail. Much appreciated and exactly what I was after.

Thank you,

James

[irolly]

new version of keyshot pro 2.3 material type 'advance' does not has the option 'specular transmission' 'roughness transmission' To diffuse the direct light source??

[guest84672]

Yes it does - you need to turn on the advanced setting in the Preferences.