Refractive only Material

[A.Frosinn]

Hello.

is there a way to create a material that only refracts, but does not absorb and, above all, does not reflect? I visualize wristwatches and in many shots the reflections on the glass are very distracting. However, the refraction behavior of the glass is important. In the glass shader there is the possibility to switch the refraction on and off, but not the reflection.

I'm not looking for a work arround (I know enough ways to avoid reflections in each individual shot through arrangement or other tricks) I look for a general solution to the problem of an exclusively refracting shader.

[richardfunnell]

I've had to do this before when working on different shapes of glass to evaluate refraction and was happy with the results.

You can use either the Plastic (transparent) or Advanced material types, and simply make sure that diffuse & specular colors are black. Set Specular Transmission to white if you want a clear material, or tint it as needed to match your material color. Set your Refractive Index to match whatever your real life material IoR.

In the screenshots you can see the difference between black & white specular colors. Hope this helps.