Hi all, Some of you may remember (or not) that a long while ago I started modeling a pocket watch. I never quite finished it until now. I was trying to figure out why it looked weird to me when it hit me. I forgot to put a glass cover or bubble over the face and hands. I always have trouble with transparent glass.This is what I came up with but I think I need help. Right now the texture is basically a not-quite-black color with transparency to the max and reflection at 10%.I also turned off cast shadow on the piiece of glass. Any suggestions on how to make it look more real? Note that on the larger pic the glass texture is different and almost invisible. The smaller pic in the left corner is where I'm at right now. Thanks, Max

By the way, I know that it looks like the watch is going to tip over the side of the box in the smaller pic. I didnt re-render since my question was really about the glass. :o)

Eovia's Caustics quick start tutorial has a decent method for creating glass. Something like the attached shader tree.

Be sure you include a refraction value, and also rather than turning off cast shadows, try using light through transparency in your render settings. The model looks excellent!

Sweet models Max. Lighting glass well is one of the toughest things to do whether you're 3d'ing or shooting actual photo's. The example above is by no means great but I can point out a couple of things in it. Lighting glass is never the same twice. Anytime glass is really close to something else, like a watch crystal, it's especially tough to light. Refraction is important. Instead of using the Index of Refraction in this instance (it exaggerates too much here) I simply used a Value Slider with 4 as the setting. Otherwise the Index of Ref. is great. I always like to use glass with thickness vs. a thin spline or vertex object; it distorts better on the edges. Also make sure that you have fairly bright highlights to. Here is where you will burn some time with area and sample renders. The glass needs something to reflect. This glass has a reflection value of 25. You can position stuff off camera or use a background image to help out. If you use off camera objects, build a shader with a bright glow to create something that will reflect so you don't have to mess around with extra lights to illuminate the off camera objects. Large cubes work great. Pagezone and Sfdex also bring up important points. Hope this helps! Mark

Thanks for all the info guys. Here is the result I got from applying all the tips you gave me. In this render there isn much outside of the scene that can reflect in the watch glass except for the blue walls, but the result is still pretty decent I think. I still open to suggestions for making it better of course. Thanks again. Max

Very Nice. Nice modeling too.