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1341

1326 Chapter 16: Material Editor, Materials, and Maps

Glossiness, the curve grows s horter; as you

increase it, the curve grows taller.

Transluce nt Shader

Material Editor > Standard material > Shader Basic

Parameters rollout > Translucent shader > Translucent

Basic Parameters rollout

The bust on the right has been made translucent.

Translucent shading is similar to Blinn shading,

butitalsoletsyouspecifytranslucency. A

translucentobjectallowslighttopassthrough,and

also scatters light within the object. You can use

translucency to simulate frosted and etched glass.

Translucency is inherently a two-sided effect:

with the translucent shader, backface illumination

appears on front faces. To generate translucency,

both sides of the material receive diff u se light,

though only one side is visible in renderings and

shaded viewports unless you turn on 2-Sided (in

the Shader Basic Parameters rollout).

If you use

radiosity (page 3–50)

,itwillprocess

light transmitted by t r anslucency. The accuracy of

this depends on the mesh: the more subdivided

thefacesare,themoreaccuratethesolutionwill

be (at a cost of processing time).

Forspecularhighlights,youhaveachoice: to

model materials like tr anslucent plastic, you can

choose to have highlig hts on b oth sides; to model

materials like f rosted glass, which is reflective on

onesideonly,youcanchoosetohavehighlightson

only one side. This is con trolled by the Backside

Specular toggle in the t ranslucent highlight

controls.

Tip: To simulate frosted glass, a fine-grained bump

map can also help.

The translucent effect appears only in renderings .

It does not appear in shaded viewports.

Note: The translucent shader does

not

simulate the

scattering of light within the object. Because of

this,itisbetteratsimulatingthinobjectssuchas

glass or paper, than at thick objects. For thicker

objects, the light passing t hrough might saturate

excessively. To avoid this, try reducing the HSV

Va lu e of the m ater i a l’ s Tr a nslucent Color.

Translucent materials also capture shadows cast on

the backfaces of the material. However, because

the translucent shader doesn’t scatter light,

for thicker objects the effect is not an accurate

simulation of real-world translucency.

Wa rn in g: Do not use shadow maps with the translucent

shader. Shadow maps result in ar tifacts at the edge of

translucent objects.