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I've tried and failed to work out how to do this. I'm trying to create a material that has a smooth reflective surface, but has a blurring refractive property, like a thick liquid/gel.

Anyone have any insight as to how this might be achieved?

Hi,
what about a Layered Material?
https://docs.otoy.com/StandaloneH_STA/S ... terial.htm

You could create your base material with blurring refractive property, then add a Specular Layer on top for the smooth reflective surface.

ciao,
Beppe

Layered approach is the most suited and practical.
It is used all over the demonstrations on the website is mentioned on this page as well as in the automotive pages (car paint, headlight glass, etc).

The layered material node is not even necessary since the materials themselves have a "material layer" slot on which a dedicated set of material layer nodes can be attached to.

In this case, it's a "double specular materials" setup:
1. first one is the regular specular material with disabled reflection (only refraction)
2. second is the "specular material layer" with default parameters acts as a coat layer

Thus, providing an independent specular reflection and refraction roughness at two distinct levels (base material and the layered material).