Adding attributes to dielectric material in MR?
 

Hi all,

I've modelled a lighter, made of transparent plastic. The dielectric material gives me nice refractions, but whenever I add more attributes to it, it won't render - MR will just freeze after a partial render (doesn't crash - but after a several minutes I just hit escape).

I've just added them as per a tutorial (create a reflect or transparency sample compositing node, plug it into the shader group then the material into that) but it fails.

Without them the dielectric is not so good - anyone know hoz to properly add to it?

thanks

gubar

Are you sure it's freezing ?
Adding attributes will increase rendertime and depending on the settings it can be a lot longer.

Hi jsprogg,

I'm pretty sure - although if it's not, it's slowing it enough to make it totally impractical (fairly simple scene, 1 light, and going from 20 secs to 2 minutes plus without updating), for only adding 1 attribute.

The same connection method works for other materials, with only a slight increase in render time... making me think maybe the dielectric material works differently in this respect.

cheers

gubar

hey gubar - sometimes when I am rendering the screen will go blank and it will seem as if it's not doing anything, but if i let it keep working it will usually eventually finish. normally when MR crashes, it will end, but still give you the report at the bottom. Try rendering overnight to see what happens.

also, what tutorial are you using?

Hi arran,

I've managed to get something fairly decent just using the material's own attributes... it's in the wip if you're interested.

The tutorial was by Digital Tutors and was on mental ray nodes, though the connection part wasn't specifically on the dielectric... I thought it would just be the same though.

cheers

gubar