Lighting Workkflows - Tips & Tricks - Glass Materials

rds3000 — Wed, 21 Feb 2018 16:08:18 GMT

Here are the main ways Glass shows up in a model:

Curtain panels - these are the easiest, as the extrusion thickness is right there in the Edit Type for the panel.
Go through all the Panel types in the Families section of the Project Browser to can set all the transparencies for the Thickness defined.
Window and Door families with Glass - normally the Glass element in the family has a Glass material Family Parameter so you can apply it in the main model with Edit Type. If not, you'll need to Edit Family to define the material. In any case, you'll need to Edit Family to discern the thickness of the glass extrusion to figure out the correct RGB for desired transparency. Best practice is to make all glass 1", so you can use common material RGB values.
Other assemblies - Sometimes general constructions like a Wall with a single structural layer, are used to define transparent objects (eg Kalwall panel). As a thickness is defined, that should be used to derive the RGB.
Other objects/masses - Sometimes s material is applied to a generic mass with varying thicknesses throughout the model. it's really hard to get the transparency right for all things it's applied to. If you want to apply transparency to odd shapes and varying thicknesses, you can use a Generic Appearance property with Transparency, and though it's not accurate, it's close enough.

David

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