Trying To Make Something Translucent

roninwolf109

I'm sure i asked this before but I'm trying to make a crystal translucent. What sliders should I play with in the surfaces tab? 
Thanks for your help! :-)

hansolocambo

Transparent materials (Cutout Opacity in DAZ) have a uniform index of refraction.

Translucent materials (Subsurface Scattering Shader aka SSS / Translucency Weight & Color) are made of different indices of refraction. SSS simulates semi-translucent objects (such as candles, human ears, fingers, etc) in which light rays enter, bounce around, then exit in different places. Many organic objects are not totally opaque and SSS provides info that will force the light to not just bounce off the top of a surface like it does on opaque materials.

For that, you can

- use a procedural shader that has an SSS node available in the list of options (Surface Tab).

Such as : Shader Presets > Iray > DAZ Uber > Wax / Water / Water Dispersive / all Glass shaders (except Thin - Clear)

- You can also click on Thin Walled in the Surface Tab to get SSS sliders available for any texture.

For unwrapped objects, SSS info can come from a texture that uses thickness information (distance between two sides of an object) generated during the baking process and/or manually painted. This texture will impact the light rays to create semi-translucency in the desired areas of a face for example. It can be a colored texture or a black and white texture. Brighter areas (ears, nose, fingers, etc. for a human) will let more light pass through. Pitch black areas won't let any light pass through.

Making your own crystal procedural shader is a very complex process if you never used DAZ Shader builder. Most people usually prefer to try some of the available crystal/gem, etc. shaders available in the DAZ store.

More (probably) useful info :

https://renderguide.com/daz3d-subsurface-scattering/

Hylas

^ no shade @hansolocambo, I'm not exactly a beginner anymore, and I didn't understand two thirds of what you're talking about

 

@roninwolf109: Assuming you're using IRAY, for a super quick solution, why not just apply the Diamond or Glass shader that comes with the base program.

 

If you want to get a little more into the nitty-gritty:

- Set Refraction Weight to 1.0

- Set Thin Walled to Off

- If you want your crystal to have a colour, place your diffuse map or dial a colour in Glossy Color

- Set Glossy Roughness somewhere between 0 and 0.3

- You can play around with Refraction Index, I personally don't find it terribly important. Set it somewhere between 1.5 and 2.5

- Make sure that there's no maps in Cutout Opacity, and that it's set to 1.0

 

 

 

rosseliani

Hylas said:

^ no shade @hansolocambo, I'm not exactly a beginner anymore, and I didn't understand two thirds of what you're talking about

 

Compared to the immense knowledge of @hansolocambo who is a true computer graphics professional, we are almost all beginners and I thank him for sharing his knowledge and experience!

hansolocambo

@rosseliani I don't know much about shaders honestly ;) But google searches might bring along the years many other people in a thread. And sometimes, even if a bit too long maybe, I prefer to make a detailed answer, as it might, someday, help someone ;)

@Hylas default DAZ diamond shader. Damn :) I totally forgot to mention that one (#^.^#) Thanks :P