Spannerhead Posted June 28, 2019 Share Posted June 28, 2019 Title says it all. What RZ settings can I change to make it transparent? Thank you! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DennisA Posted June 28, 2019 Share Posted June 28, 2019 javascript:void('Bold')Post your fmz file that is not working? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spannerhead Posted June 28, 2019 Author Share Posted June 28, 2019 It's not file-specific. It happens on all files. But I've attached a test file. Been doing this forever, and I've been working around it by erasing the opaque areas in Photoshop, but I have a new project with a ton of renderings needed and I would like to know if there's an in-formZ solution. Thanks! opaque-glass-alpha-channel.fmz Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
9192 Posted June 28, 2019 Share Posted June 28, 2019 I have asked this question before a while back, maybe more than twenty years ago. As I can remember what ztech answered was that glass shader in renderzone was not support alpha. You might need to change to generic shader, and play with the setting to make it looks like glass. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spannerhead Posted June 28, 2019 Author Share Posted June 28, 2019 Well that's disappointing. I've tried playing with the transparency shaders on a standard material to approximate glass, but nothing really comes close. If any one has settings they'd like to share, I'm all ears... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vva Posted June 29, 2019 Share Posted June 29, 2019 perhaps this file can help: (it is about 8 years old) Frosted glass.fmz.zip Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DennisA Posted June 29, 2019 Share Posted June 29, 2019 Did you send this into tech support. The only solution I came up with is to use Metal Accurate or Generic as Reflection with Simple Transparency. Made all lights Hard in case you wanted to cast shadows.Not a great solution but may work for you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew West Posted June 30, 2019 Share Posted June 30, 2019 While I have not used Renderzone now for years since Maxwell and Vray came out I still remember the good old solution that I used to use. This is really quite simple. Create a solid 1/2" thick plane. Use material Glass Accurate in the reflections channel. Within the Reflection channel set reflection to 90%. Set the transparency to 0. Leave the other settings alone. Then below the Reflection channel you have your transparency channel. Open that and set it to your desired amount. I use 85% for most windows. Make sure you to to your glass objects and turn off shadow casting and shadow receiving. Now go to your Display Options palette and under Renderzone options go to Scene and change your background tab to Alpha Channel. Now export out your renderzone image as a TIFF file. Open it in Photoshop and under your Channels tab you will see your alpha channel. Does that do what you want it to? Andrew PS. For those of you who might say that I am creating a double transparency object I say so what. It has never given me any issues over 30 years. Spannerhead 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spannerhead Posted February 5, 2020 Author Share Posted February 5, 2020 On 6/30/2019 at 2:43 PM, Andrew West said: While I have not used Renderzone now for years since Maxwell and Vray came out I still remember the good old solution that I used to use. This is really quite simple. Create a solid 1/2" thick plane. Use material Glass Accurate in the reflections channel. Within the Reflection channel set reflection to 90%. Set the transparency to 0. Leave the other settings alone. Then below the Reflection channel you have your transparency channel. Open that and set it to your desired amount. I use 85% for most windows. Make sure you to to your glass objects and turn off shadow casting and shadow receiving. Now go to your Display Options palette and under Renderzone options go to Scene and change your background tab to Alpha Channel. Now export out your renderzone image as a TIFF file. Open it in Photoshop and under your Channels tab you will see your alpha channel. Does that do what you want it to? Andrew PS. For those of you who might say that I am creating a double transparency object I say so what. It has never given me any issues over 30 years. A (very) belated thank you. I've used this approach a couple of times now and while 1) it takes much longer to render and 2) it takes some adjustment depending on the application, it works quite well. Thanks again! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.