Car headlight Glass

# 1 10-08-2003 , 02:38 PM

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Hi All,

I've been working in this car for a little while now and have run into a problem with getting the headlight glass looking right. I'm a noob with maya and shaders, so you can imagine my frustration with this. Each time I make a tweak it takes 20 minutes to render and see a result. Needless to say I haven't gotten it right yet. Could someone give me some pointers on getting clarity of the glass in the headlight looking right. Thanks

-OverDrive-

p.s. Some C&C on the car would be helpful too.

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# 2 10-08-2003 , 02:52 PM

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if it takes so long to render then why dont you hide the rest of the car and just render the parts you need? user added image

The car paint work looks really cool and the model also looks pretty good too. Can you post a wireframe for us to have a look at as well?

Alan

Technical Director - Framestore

Currently working on: Your Highness

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# 3 10-08-2003 , 02:57 PM

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Well i can make a suggestion about shortening your render times. First off, you might try using layers for everything. And then when you want to work on the headlight glass just make that and the surrounding object's layers visible.

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# 4 10-08-2003 , 03:01 PM

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layers can increase the rendering time though. Well it did for me I had shadow, spec and colour and it took 30secs extra per frame (which is nothing for a single frame but when you're doing 1710 it adds up!)

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Alan

Technical Director - Framestore

Currently working on: Your Highness

IMDB

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# 5 10-08-2003 , 03:05 PM

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What is the refractive index of your glass???

It's Dr. Know, Not Darknow

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# 6 10-08-2003 , 03:10 PM

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Here are some real life refractive indexes.....I got them from leigh van der byls site....

Alcohol - 1.329
Crystal - 2.00
Emerald - 1.576
Glass - 1.51714
Glass, Albite - 1.4890
Glass, Crown -1.520
Glass, Crown, Zinc - 1.517
Glass, Flint, Dense - 1.66
Glass, Flint, Heaviest - 1.89
Glass, Flint, Heavy - 1.65548
Glass, Flint, Lanthanum - 1.80
Glass, Flint, Light - 1.58038
Glass, Flint, Medium - 1.62725
Ice - 1.309
Mercury - 1.62
Plastic - 1.460
Ruby - 1.760
Water (gas) - 1.000261
Water 100'C - 1.31819
Water 20'C - 1.33335
Water 35'C (Room temp) - 1.33157

It's Dr. Know, Not Darknow

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# 7 10-08-2003 , 03:15 PM

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Wire_Frame

Thanks yall, here's a wire frame image.

-I have been using layers and making visible only whats viewable in the scene. I'm pretty sure my tesselation is to high? I may have gotten carried away with the smoothing....

-Rafractive index is 1.2

-OverDrive-

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# 8 10-08-2003 , 04:59 PM

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I'm no expert in glass realism, but I have been wondering the same, which is how to make realistic headlights, turn-signal and tail-light lenses. I haven't tried this yet, but I was thinking that one would have to actually model in some of the moulded lines that make up the various grid patterns found in objects of that nature. Once that is done, then it's probably a matter of getting the correct transparency and color for the particular part.

"Please excuse the crudity of this model, I didn’t have time to build it to scale or to paint it"
:: Dr. Emmett Brown

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# 9 10-08-2003 , 05:35 PM

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sjurick,

I agree with you. Either that or produce some very realistic looking textures.

Here's a link to Suurland's site and the level of clarity I'm trying to achieve. It shows the level of detail in the lights you were just describing.

https://www.suurland.com/image_x.php?...le_vray_06.jpg

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# 10 10-08-2003 , 07:31 PM

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Hi Overdrive,

It's a nice Beetle Thomas Suurland has made, as I recall he used 3d Studio Max and some HDRI in making it... user added image

there is a tut here... "How to make headlights (glass - scatterer)"... -->
https://www.3dcar-gallery.com/tutorial/less02.htm
unfortunately it is for 3D Studio Max, but maybe you can use it... user added image

here is also one... Headlights... -->
https://www.bplus.ca/tuthedlt.htm
unfortunately it isn't a Maya tut either...

I hope you can get some info out of the tuts you can use even if they aren't Maya tuts... user added image

regards

Strarup

------------------------------------------------
Alex V. U. Strarup

One mistake can ruin it all...

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# 11 11-08-2003 , 01:20 AM

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like i said before........I suggest changing the refractive index....it may just help user added image

It's Dr. Know, Not Darknow

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# 12 13-08-2003 , 12:04 AM

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Hi All,

Thanks for your help. The links and the settings have taught me alot about glass and bump settings. Unfortunitly I haven't succeded in getting my headlight right yet, but I am a step closer. BTW, I happend to locate a headlight material on the A|W website. Who would have thunk-it. Anyway their shader is better than what I was coming up with, so I think I'll just tweak it to fit the image for now.

Thanks again,

O|D

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