gradient on glass

#1

Hello everyone,

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?

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(Keyshot 11 on a Mac)

#2

Just use dielectric or glass material and control roughness with fade.

May show your results?!

1 Like
#3

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.

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#4

I always do better with pictures, here is marco’s solution-

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#5

Thanks Matt.
Most time, I write my posts and answers with my mobile phone. And in this case, a screenshot helps more!

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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”

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#6

thank you both for the feedback. I have just tried to rebuild the material graph, but I don’t have the ‘roughness’ point…? What am I missing? 13

#7

You get the roughness option if you drag the color gradient to the “+” on Dielectric node. Only the most used parameters are shown as default.

2 Likes
#8

That was embarrassingly easy

#9

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

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#10

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.

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#11

Great, thank you! I think I now have a lot of parameters that I can just play around with.

#12

I’d also recommend Will Gibbons’ tutorial on white frosted glass HERE as well!

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#14

Thanks for the help everyone!

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#15

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.

Carry on!

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#16

Thanks for the motivation Matt!