Light through Beveled or shaped Glass

[J-LYLE]

Hi all
I was just wondering if it posible for when a light is projected through a sold that is transparent (aka glass) if the area where the light falls to have the differnt shapes in it like regular light would if the glass were beveled or had an irregular surface?? Is this possible and if so how?

autocad2002
J-lyle

[CADTutor]

You can certainly do this in AutoCAD. Here's a quick example of a bevelled glass pane with a point light behind it.

http://www.cadimage.net/cadtutor/bevel2.jpg

As you can see, it's quite crude but it does demonstrate the effect you were asking about. The AutoCAD renderer is not the best on the planet (note the lack of reflection in the glass) and if you are interested in good rendered results with complex materials, you'd be better off using something like Bryce. Here's an example that took half the time of the AutoCAD one.

http://www.cadimage.net/cadtutor/bevel.jpg

The AutoCAD image was rendered using Photo Raytrace with shadows turned on. I used the Blue Glass material from the library and I used a point light with shadows turned on. That's it. :)

[J-LYLE]

Hi CADTutor thanks for the responce to my question. i tried to duplicate your example and it didnt work as well for me. my shadow had only one shade. is their a setting within the light commands that will give my shadow more detail like yours did.? Thank you

[CADTutor]

is their a setting within the light commands that will give my shadow more detail like yours did.? Thank you

It is sort of confusing because you need to make sure that shadows are turned on in two different places. First make sure shadows are on in the Rendering Options section of the Render dialogue box. Second, make sure shadows are turned on in the Shadows section of the New/Modify Point Light dialogue box.

http://www.cadimage.net/cadtutor/shadow01.gif

http://www.cadimage.net/cadtutor/shadow02.gif

From your description I'd say you have shadows on in Render but not in the Light dialogue.

[Skipa]

Hi, J-Lyle,


I'm not sure if this is any help, but there's also a REFRACTION-attribute in "Material" -> "Modify", which changes the refraction of light through a transparent material:

http://www.geocities.com/kristianhirvela/refraction.JPG

I'm not sure does it affect the light itself in any way, but it does refract other objects which can be seen through the material.

This way you can make certain transparent objects (a lense, for example) look a bit more realistic when rendered:

http://www.geocities.com/kristianhirvela/Suurennuslasi540x430.JPG