Fresnel to mix between Refraction and Transparency for refractive glassware would be my first attempt (Transparency replaces Glossy). It will look weird, as there is no such thing as nonreflective glass.
Trying to “power” the fresnel curve such that it outputs more refractive and less reflective (for facing angles), will end up causing black artifacts anyway if driven too hard.
Windows - you don’t care about the reflections for a day shot, just hide the panes completely or assign a simple Transparency shader to them.
Glassware - for glass to look like glass you need reflections. The transparency for glossy trick above is garbage wrt realism. You’re way better off setting up the scene correctly, by closing off the wall behind the camera and adjusting your lighting/exposure.
If someone can tell me how to make the Sofa look the same as in the shot above I will enable my walls. If I enable the walls the Sofa looks like in the second picture of the top post. I don’t want that. If I make the wall behind the camera transparent and with a glossy node I can adjust the roughness. Will this bounce indirect from light from the full global illumination? Thanks everyone. EDIT: I have decided to add two triangular windows in the roof area of the gable end and two rectangular windows between the lower and upper cupboards on either side of the stove and vent hood. My glass could now be a transparent shader, glossy shader, mix shader and material output if i don’t want reflections in the windows. The glossy shader allows me to adjust transparency by adjusting the roughness. It should solve all perceived problems. This setup should keep the Sofa looking the way I want it to look. I will post some renders when I am done. These are now non-glare windows so things will hopefully look real.
The portals I adjusted from 300mW to 600mW. Now to add my trees back in, add some grass and possibly change the world background to a realistic sky color.
So the basic problem is if the HDRI background outside is bright enough to light up the interior, its image in the windows get washed out? And if you reduce its intensity to avoid that, the inside gets too dim?
Then why not selectively use two different intensities? Namely, a bright one for indirect rays, and a dimmer one for camera rays? Then you get to have it both ways.
Here is an example of what I mean by selecting between two different intensities, based on whether the ray is a camera ray or not:
What do these nodes get tied into. I used a world sky texture. How do you bring them up in the shader nodes. I tried a 16k hdri but it took 1 hour for it to start rendering at it’s default setting. Thanks Ido
You’re a patient man, I’ll give you that Consider using two or three; a low res one for lighting, and a higher res for reflections, and a very high res but LDR backplate. Unfortunately HDRI haven don’t include very lowres “Env” hdr, so use the lowest possible. HDRLabs do come with these (and appropriate spherical backplates as well, which I’d use for camera), but most of these are clipped so you’d have to setup a sun to match (where sun is there).
Carl I need to do some research to understand how you use 3 hdri. My scene was pretty dark with it at default values. What strength do you need to turn them up to. Edit: Ido thanks for the info but I don’t know where you use the node setup. Thanks
Here are my computer specs. I can only render with my CPU right now. I may have to wait until I get a new computer unless I use low res HDRI. Thanks CarlG. EDIT: Here is a render with the wall enabled and glass out.
FYI … this whole thing might also be a good use-case for compositing. Because, in the latest render, “the sofa and the table look pretty good, but the shelves, the walls and the ceiling beams are taking a beating.” (Fuhgeddabout the stuff beyond the window.)
Well, since this is "computer graphics," it might be easiest to separate the problems: (1) the contents of the floor; (2) the walls, ceiling and bookcase; (3) outside. Render each one without the others, then composite.
Consider using two or three; a low res one for lighting, and a higher res for reflections, and a very high res but LDR backplate. Unfortunately HDRI haven don’t include very lowres “Env” hdr, so use the lowest possible. HDRLabs do come with these (and appropriate spherical backplates as well, which I’d use for camera), but most of these are clipped so you’d have to setup a sun to match (where sun is there).
I may have to wait until I get a new computer unless I use low res HDRI. Thanks CarlG. EDIT: Here is a render with the wall enabled and glass out.
