tinted or coated glass

[Nick Pugh]

Hi All,

I am new to this forum but have been using Keyshot for 3 years and love it .

One thing I have been trying to do is apply a metallic or optical coating to glass like the reflective sunglasses in the attached photo. There are so many controls for glass density, refraction, color, etc but I can't find a way to add this type of property to the surface of the glass, is this possible? It would also be useful for automotive and architectural window tinting.

Thanks, Nick

[Esben Oxholm]

Hi Nick.

One solution is to use a color gradient set to view direction as the color.

You can see how here:
https://youtu.be/X2iQiycb3OU

[Nick Pugh]

Thanks for the video tip, it is close to what I need to do but not exactly right. The main thing thats missing with this approach is that the metallic side is totally opaque, if you notice in the photo ref you can see some of the girls skin and eye through parts of the glass that are shaded. This is important especially if the material is shown in dim conditions with lights inside it, such as an office building at dusk with metallic tinting. I am trying to get this effect on a car where the windows have a gold tint (like an astronauts gold solar face shield) but you can see some of the interior inside the reflections, thanks again!

[Nick Pugh]

I guess the simplest way to ask the question is:

Is there a way to adjust the opacity of a metallic material like chrome or gold?

[bdesign]

Hey Nick-

You can use a Color To Number node to control the opacity of a material. Set the "Output From" value to the desired opacity. In my example render, the opacity of the gold Metal material label is set to .4.

Cheers,
Eric

[Nick Pugh]

YES!!! 

Thanks Eric, thats the solution. The only thing I could not replicate on the screenshot you sent was the backside output mask node, where is that one hidden? Even without this I got the transparent metallic look I was hoping for, maybe this worked since my windows are solid with 2 sides and edges?

Nick

[bdesign]

Hey Nick-

The lens model in my example is also a solid. I separated the outer convex surface by splitting with the Geometry Editor. The Surface Backside Mask is used here to apply the metal coating only to the front side of this split off piece. The inner concave surface and the edge have the Glass (Solid) material without the Metal label. The SBM is not necessary for the overall Opacity mapping to work, as you have discovered. If you are using KS7, you will need to edit the xml file to make the SBM available (see this thread: https://www.keyshot.com/forum/index.php?topic=20658.msg87522#msg87522 ). If using KS6, go to Edit>Preferences>Advanced and enable Experimental Features.

Cheers,
Eric