Clarify Glass Made with Bitmaps don't render?

[trutextures]

Hello

I work 95% with bitmaps and I made some lovely stained glass type textures, diffuse specular and normal maps which render fine in Strata Design 3D xi but for the life of me, all I can get in Indigo RT is a shiny mainly black glossy render (See image)

I searched these forums and read that Indigo does not support bitmap based glass materials (?)

I tried downloading the only stained glass material from the library just to see if I could reverse learn the settings for that but from what I can gather, it is not bitmap made and leads me to script based shading.. which is WAY above my understanding! (We have to learn to how to script shaders? )

Anyway.. am I wasting my time trying to render stained or indeed any glass made up from bitmap diffuse spec and normal maps?

Many thanks,

[Oscar J]

That's strange. Hope you find a solution.

[PureSpider]

Looks like your absorption settings are way too high, can we see your material try?

[Oscar J]

I agree about the script based materials by the way. They're very rarely useful for me.

[fused]

Hi trutextures,

after applying the bitmap to the "Absorption Layer" channel in the specular or glossy transparent material type, open the texture properties (by clicking on the thumbnail or the button next to it) and increase the "Scale (b)" parameter.

Higher scale means less light will be absorbed.

[trutextures]

Looks like your absorption settings are way too high, can we see your material try?

Do you mean the .img file? Once I suss out the transparency part I will upload one to the library as an .pimg file.
I was thinking Tiffany Lamps when I made them.

I am just trying to update my marketing images to look more professional than a cube or sphere in Strata which was what I was working with.

Rendered tons of stone, clay, fabrics with Indigo and really happy with the look but glass is a whole different ball game it seems. (I must confess I haven't even read the User Manual. :O I am more of a "hands on" backwards engineering type learner)

I am kind of happy with this render in terms of colour & shine but it's not showing any transparency so it looks more like enamel than glass.
I have included a render of the same materials in Strata with the transparency. They look totally different.

I tried a blend of a diffuse (+ normal ) and a Glossy Transparent using the diffuse as the absorption and the normal map. (No medium settings as I don't understand that part lol ) No use of specular map in either as there was no option.

Then I tried Blend - Diffuse - Phong but none offer any opacity or transparency. My diffuse map has semi transparency in it.

I feel such an idiot and I am sure in 6 months I will be cringing at these questions lol

[trutextures]

Hi trutextures,

after applying the bitmap to the "Absorption Layer" channel in the specular or glossy transparent material type, open the texture properties (by clicking on the thumbnail or the button next to it) and increase the "Scale (b)" parameter.

Higher scale means less light will be absorbed.

Many thanks. It definatly works for getting the colour ramped up!

[trutextures]

Looks like your absorption settings are way too high, can we see your material try?

Attached an .img file with a blue version I am working with.

Happy with the colours but need some level of transparency.

[fused]

Hi,

for transparency, you need to use a "specular" or "glossy transparent" type material and the apply your bitmap to the "absorption layer" channel.

Like in this material:

stained_glass.pigm

(58.23 KiB) Downloaded 1005 times

[trutextures]

Hi,

for transparency, you need to use a "specular" or "glossy transparent" type material and the apply your bitmap to the "absorption layer" channel.

Like in this material:

stained_glass.pigm

Thank you
Much appreciated.

However, when I try to open it I get this error:

Error: Failed to parse material: Found unexpected element 'max_extinction_coeff'. (In element 'basic', around line 6, column 9)

I cannot open the file but I will try as you recommended my end

[Zom-B]

So update your Indigo version!
That should be the first step taken if you encounter some problems

http://www.indigorenderer.com/forum/vie ... =1&t=13225