Translucency and shadows

[gregsandor]

I have added some light fixtures to the exterior of my diner model.  The plastic cover is translucent plastic.  If I set the object it to cast shadows, will the light still transmit partially through it?

[Dune]

I don't think so, but am not sure. Why not test it in a simple setup and cropped render?

[Matt]

Direct light won't pass through it. But if the object appears bright due to translucency, then it can cast some indirect light through the GI engine. You might find that the GI engine doesn't do a good job if the objects are small. The GI might be patchy or non-existent. Increasing GI sample quality and GI cache detail might help. Give it a try. Use very high light intensities so that the light shades appear very bright (or use large translucency values) and then see how well the GI engine manages with it.

Matt

[bobbystahr]

Coincidentally I had been playing with this last night and was inspired to continue today...thanks.
In this scene only the lighting is changed. The lens is textured with image maps which are also in the Translucency and Luminanace channels. I also control the transparency with the same map which is most apparent in the 10000 power Luminance render, The lamp in the this model is a separate model and in the render with the light on it has no lum. or trans. In the ones with Luminance and Translucency on the lamp object it starts at 100, then 1000, 10000, etc.
There is a reflector object within the lamp proper that I have high reflection on through a Reflection shader which is sometimes helpful at high power luminance settings.
For the final image I disabled the Water shader and scaled the light up from .005 where I started to .5. It uses the Alpha from image switch set to a tolerance of .5.
The colour is 0.4 with the knurl map, and the Translucence and Luminosity both use the same map at 1.0
I have attached the .tgd and will supply the models if requested , The room is just a cube from Bryce U/V mapped and the work light was a freebie so I guess, as they supplied no readme re: sharing, I could e-send that as well, but I think the pics show a cool progression.