- [Narrator] Given the transparent or refractive materials,
such as glass and water, are also likely
to figure one form or another,
in many of the projects that we undertake.
It is also probably a good idea to take a look at
how we might go about creating those.
In this instance, a basic or generic glass shader
that we could then use as a jumping off point
for more complex material types.
In the glass tab, in the material editor then,
let's create a new V Ray material and rename it basic glass.
After which we can reassign it to our butterfly geometra.
Now glass is a material type that doesn't really
have a surface color property
that needs to be associated with it.
Even when we create a colored glass,
it isn't the diffuse controls in a material
that provide the color information.
Because those options are designed
to mimic surface light interaction.
Whereas, the coloration found on a glass object
typically comes from light interaction happening
on the inside of the volume.
Having said that though, using black as the diffuse color
in a V Ray material will give our glass
a little bit of a smoked look if that is something
that we want to add a hint of.
As glass is a highly reflective material,
we will need to come to the reflection section
of the material controls and set the reflect color
to an almost white.
With a value of around about 250, giving us
Of course, glass is also refractive
Come to the refraction section.
And then paste that same, almost white,
value into the refract color.
After which, we can go ahead and take a test render.
Now, although this is a somewhat subjective statement,
I find using numbers that stay away
from extreme values such as 0 and 255,
tend to give those reflection and refraction effects
that look little bit more realistic.
What we have here, then, looks pretty good
and is instantly recognizable as a glass object.
We have nice reflections on the material
and a clear refraction effect taking place.
The really cool thing now, though,
is that this simple glass material can easily be used
as the basis for a whole host of refractive
or see through material types.
For instance, by lowering the index of refractions
to about 1.33, we would create a generic clear water shader.
Or by raising it to about 2.42 we would create
a generic diamond material.
If I enable this. Drop the aberration number down
to something like 10 and then take another render,
you can see that we now get this really nice
dispersion effect that mimics the break up
of light wavelengths within the volume of an object.
Do be warned, though, that adding this effect
Not an effect that is always necessary
for realism, of course, but one that
enhance our finished material.
With lower aberration numbers creating
a stronger effect and larger ones
tending to produce something that is much more subtle.
Now we did say in the introduction, that we could use
this basic glass material as a starting point
for creating more complex looking options.
And so let's disable our dispersion effect for now.
And then move on to our next exercise, where we will
take a look at creating both colored and frosted variations
of this basic glass material.