Enable / Disable SSS Checkbox

Started by WAS, January 05, 2020, 02:57:33 PM

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WAS

In certain scenarios, we may need to older behavior of "glass" for certain aspects of our scenes. For example, I was curious about SSS settings for a candle from N-drju's topic in discussion. However a big limitation of the scene is I cannot add a candle flame with semi-transparency for the blue base of the flame for the handles. I can only use a Default Shader and my candle flames alpha I had to make. If I use the glass shader, volume is interpreted and I can't seem to find any settings to simply "disable" the effect.

So I propose a checkbox to enable/disable SSS interpretation to have volume-less glass for some of the things we've had to do for semi-transparency. Maybe a Lighting Method which is "Legacy" for PT? I don't know.

Secondary Question: In the example file, things get very rough in the darkness, AA is at 8. Do I really need to go higher? Or is this the object normals/subdiv?

N-drju

Oh, that's a really nice effect. What reflectivity values did you use? I still just get a luminosity instead of the anticipated result.

The graininess in image can be kept under control simply by increasing the resolution, AA value and regulating PT-related settings. I tried that both with intense lights and atmospheres and it works well. On low resolution it may have no impact, but I guarantee you'll see the difference once you go full HD.
"This year - a factory of semiconductors. Next year - a factory of whole conductors!"

WAS

#2
Here's the Glass Settings for you, but this candle isn't to scale, please take note. I was lazy. Specular roughness should be a little higher imo.

Candle Flame if ya need one (with semi-transparency it would look nice, and can be warped for variance): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nADuy4D2mESstXoZmFipUA4P4oGorMe2/view?usp=sharing Wasteful format in TIFF but I just duplicated Green for Alpha and exported a TIFF.

WAS

#3
A note -1 for decay distance seems to work (for semi-transparency) in blackness, but not against a haze background. Haven't tried with sun enabled.

Semi-transparency doesn't work at all with atmo-bloom though, which I like a lot.

It'd be cool to get more tolerant semi-transparency with opacity. I wonder why that's a issue.

N-drju

Quote from: WAS on January 05, 2020, 07:41:56 PMIt'd be cool to get more tolerant semi-transparency with opacity. I wonder why that's a issue.

No idea, but you're right. An ability to control opacity down to the nines (like you can in DAZ, resulting in interesting ghostly figures) could solve a lot of problems. For some reason opacity works "on - off" only in TG.
"This year - a factory of semiconductors. Next year - a factory of whole conductors!"

Matt

#5
Have you tried Double-sided / Thin-walled? That transmits rays through the glass without refraction and without volume effects. I would use that for windows, for example. But the surface will still be visible because of Fresnel effects.
Just because milk is white doesn't mean that clouds are made of milk.

Matt

Quote from: WAS on January 05, 2020, 07:41:56 PMA note -1 for decay distance seems to work (for semi-transparency) in blackness, but not against a haze background. Haven't tried with sun enabled.

Semi-transparency doesn't work at all with atmo-bloom though, which I like a lot.

It'd be cool to get more tolerant semi-transparency with opacity. I wonder why that's a issue.

It might be easier to get this working with the path tracer. It's on the to-do list. However, atmo bloom won't be able to see through these objects in the same way, because the post effects only have access to the final image buffers. I can imagine some solutions to this but I don't know for sure how feasible they are to implement yet.
Just because milk is white doesn't mean that clouds are made of milk.