Cineversity

Working on some low poly cars that have interiors modeled. I want to texture the glass, but of course once I add the Redshift glass material, it reads it as a solid block of glass, and the refractions on the interior car is severe.
Is there a “fake thickness or double sided glass” option in redshift to make the refraction more real world…or do I need to actually model glass thickness to have it auto correctly?

Being low poly, I want to have as much realism while maintaining low poly count…is this possible?

Thanks.

Pete

Hi Pete,

I would model it.

For questions about Redshift, please check with the Redshift 3D Forum.

I think what you are looking for (if I get this right), is an architectural shader, or perhaps refraction shader. But that is as far as I know not for single non-volume objects.
In Redshift, the effect is called Thin Walled, but it has no refraction included, hence the name Thin Walled
https://docs.redshift3d.com/display/RSDOCS/Material
Scroll down to Thin Walled.

Realism with glass and low polygon numbers while the idea of low polygon object is fast rendering: I’m not sure if that works together. If so, why would anyone model detailed glass at all? Architecture, with flat glass, is a different story than talking about cars. (Bend glass panes in architecture is super rare.)

I say that, as the term realism produces quite some expectations, and I’m not going into that at all based on a general question. It is not healthy.

My best wishes

edited 6:32pm

Thank you for your response. Yes..basically, I have a medium to low poly car with a modeled interior (though low poly). The windows and doors are all in one model. With the window polys being tagged with “glass” material. Once I add the glass material, the refraction is pretty severe, as if the whole interior was solid glass. I know some programs have cheats like a “make double sided” feature, which give a quick look to window without it looking too refracted by adding a fake thickness. Maybe it’s just best to just leave off refraction all together for this need

I think your answer makes best sense. Thanks for your help….again

You’re very welcome, Pete, thanks for the reply.

Going by the obvious, except for some extreme camera angles, the glass is supposed to be optically perfect. With that, we might have on some extreme curves a refraction effect, but typically, those areas are then more reflective anyway.
A good fresnel based reflection might do the trick. (Practical footage would deal with a polarizer, which is a different theme, of course.

Perhaps we talk about a distortion post effect that would fit your needs more?

All the best

Yea..I agree..I’m just going to strip the refraction. We are going through some test scenes using now C4D assets ( a first for our studio) So we want two create these assets once as real as possible and be able to pull them as needed into new scenes. Hence wanting to get into the nitty gritty to make them best as possible, even for low ploy. I think it should be fine for now..and if we ever need to “up” the quality we’ll do that as needed in the future.

One question..is there a way to swap in an upgraded model in a scene that is already animated with many models. For instance, say there are a ton of police cars and we went in a separate file and update the textures and details..maybe even added flashing lights and such. Then we wanted to update all those cars in the original scene. Is there a way to globally “update” those models without it effecting all the positioning and animating with the original model?

Pete,

To have those systems in place requires centralizing maybe the textures, to begin with, so everyone will access the same files. Since Cinema 4D will ask when a new texture is loaded, where to place it, some care needs to be taken; otherwise, a copy is easily created.
https://help.maxon.net/us/index.html#PREFSPATHS-PREFS_PATHS_MAIN_GROUP
https://help.maxon.net/us/index.html#68600

Secondly, the XRef system should be explored, as it access objects from any place, but has as well an option to set proxies/originals
https://help.maxon.net/us/index.html#45148
Since you studying this right now, I know you will explore how much it will fit into your next project architecture.

I’m not sure if that fits into the theme, but my intuition told me to include it:
https://www.cineversity.com/vidplaytut/use_fbx_to_export_lods_from_cinema_4d_to_unreal

Besides all of that, to have as much of the animation already given to a parent object (or null rig) holding the visible object, might be worth considering. Those Nulls or parent objects can hold User Data, which can be animate and easily connected to child objects. Note that the specific parameter of an XRef object might be locked by default, but check XRef> options. So there is a limitation eventually. Again, it needs to be explored according to your ideas and needs.

In the hope that my little reply lead to some workflow ideas, but let me add one more thing
https://www.cineversity.com/vidplaytut/animation_techniques_for_teams_part_01_course
It is a course that I had created a while ago. It takes a character animation system and turns it into a more general animation system. It relies on an exact hierarchy, but it can have some extra parts as standard, to have enough options later on. This allows us to store even complex animations while given the opportunity to work in a team. However, the animations, even complex and detailed, will then be edited like we edit a movie. Since you asked a while back about ghosting, I know you have already looked into this system (Since I write in a forum, I sometimes overshare, to be more complete.)

I tried not to send a torrent of information (too late I guess), I’m happier to answer specific questions.

Enjoy.

That XREF is prefect! Whew! Just what we need. This will allow a team to work on a scene. Also, I see it accepts rigs and transfers them over, which is great. I suppose you need to just make sure you don’t alter the rig too much on the reference file.

I took al look at your other files. Yea, we are working off a studio server, so reference paths should work well (once we get out of this working from home mode).
I also liked the LOD. Is there a way to lock the LOD at the beginning oaf a scene so it won’t “pop” half way through a scene to a different model?

Also, saw you “teams flow. very interesting. We set up something similar in our AE motion workflow. Interesting to see it applied to CG. It definitely got me thinking of different flows.
Again, this month is really just trying to stress test our C4D knowledge so we are comfortable workiung it in our next project. So far..so good! (thanks in part to your generosity).

Thanks for the reply, Pete.

THE LOD mode that you might need is the
LOD> Attribute Manager> Options: Use LOD 0 for rendering.
This will not prevent the switch inside the editor’s view, but in any rendering, the Level 0 will be used.
I mention this one first, as I believe that you like to keep it simple.
In that mode, the editor’s load is small if the LOD switches to lower levels, but rendering is always best.

Besides, there is
LOD> Attribute Manager>Object> Criteria: User Level
That allows you to define manually what you need.

https://help.maxon.net/us/index.html#OLOD-ID_OBJECTPROPERTIES

If you develop a studio-wide standard,  perhaps the Take System will help here. Defining a Work In Progress (with anything set to low levels) and a Delivery Take, which contains everything you need for the final step. Perhaps more levels.

As long as it is a standard, it should work fine.

After everything is done for a project, I would save it as usually incremental, with all links active, but one with assets: Save with Assets, as a backup or version that will work even if the server is down or all assets have changed over time.
(I did all of that since you posted practically, just to be sure that nothing has changed.)

My best wishes

You, my friend…are a bottomless well of knowledge and generosity.

You’re very welcome, Pete, the pleasure is all mine.

Let me know if there is anything else, I’m happy to look into it.

Cheers.