Glass material question

[Anonymous]

Hi all,

I'm trying to create a glass material that has this effect. When at the back of the glass material there is a shaded(dark) area the glass is more reflective. When at the back of the glass is an area with more light the glass is more transparent. I haven't been able to do that yet. Anyone has any idea....?

Thanks....

[Anonymous]

If you're talking about the 'security' mirrors which seem to only work one way, then the reason you can't model them like that is because that's not how they work. The reflectivity of the mirror doesn't change - it's constant at about 60% no matter which side you're on or what the lighting might be. It's the strong difference in ambient light levels between each side which causes the glass to seem "one way", based on the nonlinearity of the human eye. You can fake the effect in Max by setting up different lighting levels (*very* different, as in the real world they're many orders of magnitude apart).

[Anonymous]

Hi...

Thanks for replying. No this isn't what I was talking about, although I find the answer useful for other things I had in mind. What I'm trying to do is create a glass as the one appearing in this photo

http://www.empyreanint.com/images/portfolioImages/7011e.jpg

I'm trying to reconstruct that photo in a scene as an exercise. The glass in that photograph appears to be more transparent when behind it we have white areas. You can clearly see the ceiling and the white counter top but you can't see the floor of the kitchen (the deck is reflected). When I try to recreate that part I can either see everything or not. I can't figure out a setting or a trick that will make the glass more clear in the areas that show a white background....

[CAMedeck]

With a dark background, reflections are easier to see. They are still there when the background is very light, they just aren't as visible.

What version of Max are you using, and what render engine?

[Anonymous]

Max 2008 and mental ray. I'll later try to render it with scanline. The scene is build for educational porpuses, so I'll try to reconstruct it in other renderers later (Vray, Maxwell etc)