Topic: [Blender] Glass casting dark shadows?

[pazur]

I'm working on the window texture in Blender that I mentioned in my last post.

Now I stumbled over something pretty strange. Not sure if it's a bug in 2.49 or intended. I've never seen such a behavior in any 3D software like Cinema 4D or 3DS Max (that I used before Blender). Transparent glass is casting full dark shadows ... every other 3D software knows that a transparent surface need to pass light through it.

See: http://www.screencast.com/users/ypiotr/folders/Jing/media/9b8c4366-b552-4d4f-b435-92c6baad9284

How can I tell Blender that glass is not supposed to cast the full shadow but only a soft/weak shadow?

[kat]

Check your material settings (both the 'material' and 'texture' settings) as there are quite a few to do with 'transparency' and 'alpha' that you have to have active in order for it to properly regard the surface as not being solid (which is what it's doing right now).

One thing I would add is that you'll need to add 'walls' to the window so you get 'proper' lightcasting on the curtain surface, I'm assuming you're rendering like this to get a more 'correct' shadow cast over a texture?.

[pazur]

I found the topic on blenderartists.org: http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=75356

To "fix" this you need to disable the 'traceable' button in the 'Links and Pipeline' panel of the material section.

See: http://www.screencast.com/users/ypiotr/folders/Jing/media/d0cc4e9e-d257-402e-8d10-dce1d29cc157

I'm rendering this because a.) I wouldn't be able to make it so pretty in Gimp or Inkscape by "drawing", b.) because I want to try to make a normalmap from it and c.) I want to reduce the tri-count in my map as I had this window as true geometry before.

Yes you are right, I will need a wall around the window for proper shadow casting.

[pazur]

This is now the texture now looks in my map... http://www.screencast.com/users/ypiotr/folders/Jing/media/b8178263-002f-49b7-a841-bb2c533098f1 (I have a variation with a flower in the window and am open curtain)

[kat]

Ha! That's worked pretty well. Good Job.

[ratty redemption]

agreed, well done pazur *thumbs up*

[pazur]

Thanks Kat & Ratty