So on this tutorial of Blender Guru at 5:10 (Or 6:46 I think) you can see it, basically he uses the light path node so he can pass light throught glass and make it render fast. This would allow to render glasses with some kind of pattern like this https://i.pinimg.com/originals/0c/0e/4d/0c0e4dfc2cf599d06fd88ac79fe7ad98.jpg
I need to know cause in class I have to use 3DS Max and it comes with Arnold.
Where is the video link? Have you tried using a displacement or bump (far distance)?
Here's the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I685JGTCpCU
The problem is not how to do it, but how to do it fast, as you can see, light there can only pass through glass, but that makes the render time ridiculously high, the glass has to be transparent for the scene but only visible to the camera.
Oh, that seems interesting, not sure how I'll set up that yet, but the arnold manual says it's not currently working, at least in the latest version, I tested it and didn't notice any time or appearance difference.
https://support.solidangle.com/display/A5AF3DSUG/Lights
They appear also here, but nothing is said about if it's aviable or not https://support.solidangle.com/display/A5AF3DSUG/Light+Group
Have you tried using a Ray Switch shader?
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