glassfra
>>Will future versions of 3DS have in
>>the materials editor a provision to
>>state the refractive index of a material?
>>It seems to me that this feature would
>>make MUCH easier the design of glass
>>objects and translusent materials.
>>Couple this with ray tracing and it
>>seems to me my problems would be solved.
For animations, usually the frame time for raytracing is too high. For single
frame work it can be pretty useful, though. You can raytrace an object right
now by translating it to PoV or Vivid (two widely available raytracers) format
with 3DS2POV. You have to rebuild some of your textures, though. Render time
can be pretty long, depending on the scene. Something with lots of reflection
and refraction in it could take maybe 8 hours on a 486/66. They do look pretty
incredible, though.
I think there may be a workaround that would be pretty effective in 3DS,
though. I've seen mention of creating a flic from the refracting objects point
of view, and then mapping that to it mirrored (or something like that, not
sure). What I would try is creating a cubic environment map and reversing the
side assignments. Then use that as a reflection map for the semi-transparent
material assigned to the refractive object.
The new Topas uses an interesting trick. They create a cubic environment map
around the refracting object, and when the eye ray hits the refracting object,
they bend it with the specified IOR into the environment map and use that
color. It's not raytracing, but in an animation, it would still look pretty
great.
Jim