I’ve been trying for hours to get a gradient on glass, but unfortunately I’m failing.
I want a glass surface that is transparent at the top and becomes increasingly milky towards the bottom as if it had been sandblasted, i.e. with a smooth transition from glossy transparent to matt opaque.
I originally came from Cinema 4D, where I would have placed a gradient on a matt white material and then placed this on a glass material - you can ‘stack’ materials over each other as you like.
I’m sure the material graph in Keyshot is much more versatile, but I can’t manage to get the effect with the gradient. I think once I understand it, I can also use it to simulate a metallic vapour deposition that fades from reflective to transparent, but I’m stuck at the moment. Anny Ideas?
So Close!
as a C4D user myself, I can see where you are coming from and its not far off. In KS they call the additional layers “Labels” They should not call them lables, but this was the first use of them so the name stuck.
You need to have 2 materials in your graph. One for the base material which will be your clear glass, and the Label will be your secondary haze material. (oddly i just figured out you can’t use a transparent material for the base material of a label) Then your gradient in the opacity channel like you have will do exactly what you want it to.
Just drag the output of the color to number or fade node onto the material node (glass in this case) and as you leave the mouse button (drop) a contextmenu will appear, then choose “roughness”
Many thanks for all the approaches.
I have tried them all and attached the result. However, what I haven’t managed yet is to make the surface really white, as is the case with blasted glass. Do you have any ideas on how I can do this?
I have to confess that I’m currently still pretty bluntly copying what you suggest without really understanding how it works. But I think this is a good way to understand and learn
If you are using dielectric you will want to enable “multiple scattering” in the material to get the correct white appearance. Otherwise energy is lost as you increase the roughness.
excellent! if you read my post history from years ago ,it was much like yours. not knowing what the buttons and knobs did or where they were and irritated when they were hidden. But, as things click it does get easier to not only sort stuff out on your own, but knowing what to ask and how the software is organized.
