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How to get the alpha right when using glass ?

Posted: Wed Jul 16, 2014 5:58 pm
by kiwimage
hello,

I have a little problem that I wanted to discuss.

This is my render, in png, and that's ok for a light background.
Image

Alpha channel looks like this : pure white, pure black...

Image

As you can see, the alpha channel isn't right, there should be semi-transparent areas in the glass.

Is there a way to achieve what i want or is it a limitation of Octane ?

Re: How to get the alpha right when using glass ?

Posted: Wed Jul 16, 2014 6:04 pm
by rosch
Hey Guys,
I have exactly the same problem right now. Tried pretty much all the setting involving alpha/environment. Clueless right now. Please Help :)

Re: How to get the alpha right when using glass ?

Posted: Wed Jul 16, 2014 6:17 pm
by aoktar
use some fake ways. With opacity and falloff

Re: How to get the alpha right when using glass ?

Posted: Wed Jul 16, 2014 10:28 pm
by kiwimage
Thanks for your response, I guess I would know how to fake the effect and I don't really need this for this particular project, since I'll be integrating this on a light background, I was just being curious on how to do this.

I guess you can't do much about it Aoktar, as a plugin developper, but i have to say it's a very bad surprise that OctaneRender, wich can achieve amazing things really fast, won't be able to render a glass of water with acurate alpha.

Re: How to get the alpha right when using glass ?

Posted: Thu Jul 17, 2014 7:16 am
by gabrielefx
I requested this feature 3 years ago
Probably in Otoy think that we are hobbyists.

Re: How to get the alpha right when using glass ?

Posted: Thu Jul 17, 2014 7:24 am
by slepy8
One of few reasons Octane Render is still not Production Ready.

But we should stay positive. Lots of changes lately. Maybe this one is on schedule ;)

Re: How to get the alpha right when using glass ?

Posted: Thu Jul 17, 2014 8:41 am
by mbetke
I use a lower opacity value on the glass.
Up to 0.25 if needed.

Re: How to get the alpha right when using glass ?

Posted: Thu Jul 17, 2014 11:06 am
by abstrax
Try using the material "glass fake falloff" from the LiveDB:
fake_glass_viewport.png
fake_glass.png
Of course, it doesn't have refraction, but refraction can't be captured with a simple alpha channel anyway.

Re: How to get the alpha right when using glass ?

Posted: Thu Jul 17, 2014 2:53 pm
by kiwimage
Image

OK I've been playing around and came up with the result above, which combines transparency and a mix of fake and real refractions.

Here are the steps I followed.

1/ render a RGBA picture with the material "glass fake falloff", as advised by Abstrax (on the glass and liquid)
2/ make another render with regular physically correct glass.
3/ In Photoshop, apply the alpha of the first render to the second render.
4/ Tweak the levels of this alpha channel (bump the contrast a bit, depending on what you want)
5 /Make a Background in photoshop
6/ The refraction of the letters behind the serynge are Photoshop cheating, with alpha masks and a contraction filter on the letters.

It's manageable to cheat the eye in still images, but this process would be very very tough to achieve in animation (the refraction part of it)

Re: How to get the alpha right when using glass ?

Posted: Thu Jul 17, 2014 8:59 pm
by abstrax
kiwimage wrote:Image

OK I've been playing around and came up with the result above, which combines transparency and a mix of fake and real refractions.

Here are the steps I followed.

1/ render a RGBA picture with the material "glass fake falloff", as advised by Abstrax (on the glass and liquid)
2/ make another render with regular physically correct glass.
3/ In Photoshop, apply the alpha of the first render to the second render.
4/ Tweak the levels of this alpha channel (bump the contrast a bit, depending on what you want)
5 /Make a Background in photoshop
6/ The refraction of the letters behind the serynge are Photoshop cheating, with alpha masks and a contraction filter on the letters.

It's manageable to cheat the eye in still images, but this process would be very very tough to achieve in animation (the refraction part of it)
It's not possible to do this automatically in post, because of step 6). If you want correct refractions you need to do the compositing in the rendering.