I've been trying for the last several weeks, with no success, to render a translucent polycarbonate in my exterior envelope and I'm approaching finals in less than a week. I've used project materials and appearance materials. I've downloaded polycarbonate materials in online sources- nothing seems to get it right. My issue is that the material is either completely transparent (most common, happens with project materials most often), semi transparent (looks okay during the right time of day, but completely transparent from the interior; shown in attachment), or opaque (the polycarbonate appearance materials, for example; shown in attachment). I've attached photos of what I'm going for, as well as what I've been getting. It's important for my project to see the vertical texture of the polycarbonate
Rendering polycarbonate
- gmccrac4
- Thread is Unresolved
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Rick Marx
Approved the thread. -
Translucent materials are best resolved using a cutout material of small holes that individually will not be distinguishable from a very short distance but will create the illusion of translucency.
Another great option over here: Revit Frosted Glass Transparency
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Consider using an advanced material with a roughness image applied (instead of using the roughness slider) to achieve what you want and get the material to more closely resemble polycarbonate. Or you could use a glossy map for the same effect. Commonly you'd use a specular map in this field (i.e. to have tile look glossy but still have the grouting look matte) which isn't typically used in glass-like materials, but I think you could use it to achieve a polycarbonate look? Annoyingly Revit doesn't support adding glossy/roughness maps to the "frosted glass" base material, which is the only material that will actually blur objects behind it.
I've also done the method phil mentioned above to achieve a patterned frosted glass look. I had the main glass have the cutout pattern, and then added a second thinner panel inside that had the frosted glass effect applied. That way I got the patterned look I wanted but the glass still blurred objects behind it & reflected light like you'd expect of glass. As far as I know, you can't use cutout masks and have Enscape render the material as glass-like at the same time, so you need to use two panels, one with the glass material and one with the cutout effect if you want the object to still look+reflect like glass.
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BTW gmccrac4, as you are doing this for an educational project, and your finals at that, you won't be able to have a polycarbonate curtain wall without either laminated / toughened glass or a handrail, for safety issues, as anyone falling against it would likely go through it and a have quite a fall down to the ground.
Best of luck with your finals !
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This is the effect I achieved
Glass Material
Frosted
Normal map with the linear pattern on it
EDIT
Sorry, just realised this was a Revit post.
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Are you trying to create something like this?
