Rendering Opaque Channel Glass

    I'm having trouble trying to accurately render Opaque Channel Glass. Attached are real world examples as well as two project examples.



    I've tried Glass, Glazing, and Generic materials. I've even tried modeling the channel glass 1:1. I can't seem to accurately replicate the light dispersion.


    In the project example 1, I used a "frosted glass" approach. It's fairly close, except that the objects close the the glass are too visible. The structural framing should be as blurred as the person in the shot.



    In the project example 2, I have the channels fully modeled, as well as the fiberglass thread insulation inside. Objects do not show through at all, and the sunlight passes right through (you can see the sun rays).


    Has anyone had any success creating a material and/or modeling in a way that accurately represents the real world examples linked?

    I've tried modelling translucent panel systems and found that a very small touch of self-illumination tends to help the panels look more evenly lit like they would in real life. Not sure how to solve the specific shadow issue besides adjusting the Enscape settings for clouds, shadow sharpness, etc.

    I don't think this is reproducible in Revit as demonstrated in the SketchUp project above. In Revit you can't have geometry with zero sickness (one exception would be topographies). In the SketchUp project the designer is using a self illuminated surface of zero thickness which does not display in Enscape. In Revit self illuminated materials can't also be transparent. So they're going to be visible in Enscape.


    This is a pretty tricky condition. You want the effect of the light refracting inside of the glazed panels. But Revit doesn't have a light shape that represents this configuration. And you can't use self illumination with a custom geometry shape between the translucent panels since it'll visible and block the translucent effect of the glazing.


    I need to go away and do some non-thinking...

    May be able to recreate something similar to that sketchup tutorial with a dense array of studio lights? Or maybe have self-illuminated planes like mullions to cast light from within the glass without blocking the translucent view to objects beyond.

    Quote from ap1

    May be able to recreate something similar to that sketchup tutorial with a dense array of studio lights? Or maybe have self-illuminated planes like mullions to cast light from within the glass without blocking the translucent view to objects beyond.

    I've tried that before, and it is similar to what I'm doing in the second project photo, but in Revit, when you make something self-illuminated, it no longer renders as transparent in Enscape. So I ended up doing a very fine cut-out. The downside is that you end up with this "sparkly glittery" effect while moving in Enscape. It's fine for stills, but very distracting and unrealistic when showcasing live.

    Could you add say a duplicate layer of the glass just offset an inch or wherever it fits really, just inside to further diffuse the visibility of objects inside? At least for that issue. The other issues also reminds me of using invisible self illuminated planes in maybe sketchup. Can we make vertically standing sheets of topography and give them frosted glass material to have a zero thickness surface? Just bending my mind on stupid ideas a little.