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Color Controls 1485

both sides of the material receive diff u se li g ht,

though only one side is visible in renderings and

shaded viewports unless you turn on 2-Sided (in

the Shader Bas ic Parameters rollout).

If you use radiosity (page 3–51),itwillprocesslight

transmitted by translucency. The accuracy of this

depends on the mesh: the more subdivided the

faces are, the more accurate the solution will be (at

a cost of processing time).

Forspecularhighlights,youhaveachoice:to

model materials like translucent plastic, you can

choose to have hig h lig hts on both sides; to model

materials like frosted glass, wh ich is reflective on

onesideonly,youcanchoosetohavehighlightson

only one side. This is controlled by the Backside

Specular toggle in the t ranslucent hig hlight

controls.

Tip: To simulate frosted g lass, a fine-grained bump

map can also help.

The t ranslucent effect appears only in renderings.

It does not appear in shaded view p orts.

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 th icker

objects, the light passing through might saturate

excessively. To avoid this, try reducing the HSV

Va lue o f t h e m ater i a l’s Tr a n s lucent C o l o r.

Translucent materials also capture shadows cast on

the backfaces of the m aterial. However, because

the translucent shader do esn’t scatter light,

for thicker objects the effect is not an accurate

sim ulation of real-world translucency.

Wa rning: Do not use shadow maps with the translucent

shader. Shadow maps result in artifacts at the edge of

translucent objects.