Eric,
Thanks for sharing. Yes, you are correct, I need to enable refraction for cwGlass-- it’s such a processor hog and I prefer saving those cycles when doing realtime renders. It really gets my computer singing.
To me, the realistic glass shader is too dark. Looks more like acrylic in the render you show. Not enough fresnel wrapping around the sides. Perhaps it’s the lack of HDRI or just the scene. That’s why I put the curves node in cwGlass, to be able to tweak the amount of fresnel reflection on the object with a single point.
I’ll take a look at your file and new settings.
I do agree that the additive has an issue with NOT having any dark whatsoever. I think your approach may be better, I just need to play with it to see if I can remove some of the darkness. Thanks again for sharing. 