Keyshot 8 - Issue with fully transparent plane being visible in water material

[Kent]

Hi!

I want to make an aura effect in water where a blue shine is present. To create this effect I use a texture of the aura and connects it to an emissive material as Color and Opacity. In the water I create a simple plane and put the emissive "aura material" on it. This works great but only when all water material is removed. If any water material is present, then the aura material plane looks like a colored glass window instead of a fully transparent (invisible) material in the outer edges (see attached picture - left version is correct, right version is wrong). The water is a large cube surrounding everything. The top side of the cube includes an individual surface which is used to show and fine tune the water surface in a pool. The aura material plane is located inside the water cube, far below the water surface plane. I need to remove both the water cube and surface plane to have the aura material to look right. I have tried several different versions of the aura texture, render settings, but the issue remains. I solved it by removing all water and turned the environment all blue to simulate water, but then it is not possible to look through the water surface to see the aura effect inside the water. Is this a software limitation or just me being ignorant? Any hints?

Thank you in advance!

/Kent

Platform: Windows 7
Version: Keyshot 8.1.61
Modeling system: Creo 3.0   M110
Plugin: Creo 3.0 64bit
Reproduce issue: Any model with a plane inside a water volume. Emissive material with texture to control color and opacity. See description above.

[MWo]

Attached you'll find a simple example.
I used the scattering media as the "water volume" and add a liquid plane on top.

Cheers
Marco

[Kent]

Vielen Dank Marco für dein Antwort! 

However, I don't think it solved my problem. I will try to explain better what end result I want and my issue with a complete plane being visible in water, when I hoped it shouldn't be.

PS. I have also tried scatter media to capture the light/aura around an object. However, if the "smoke/mist" shouldn't be so visible, then the aura becomes very weak. To make the aura stronger, then the mist gets so thick that it blocks the visibility of the object.

Please see the attached pictures. There the scatter media unfortunately works the same way as a liquid.

Any more ideas?

Thanks,
Kent

[MWo]

OK - I just played with the "water"-material.
Now it's not scattering but has a partial roughness in the transmission.
And instead of an intersecting plane, it uses an emissive material as a label.

Not perfect now.

This nut is heavy!


Cheers
Marco

[bdesign]

Hi Kent-

Here is a Material Graph setup for a layered material that will achieve the desired "aura" effect on a plane below a water (Liquid material) surface. Create a simple white to transparent square gradient in Photoshop, and save it as a PNG with transparency. Then, plug the gradient texture > (Source) of a Color Invert node > (Transparency) of a Toon material. Set the Toon Color to the desired "aura" color, set the Contour Width to zero, and uncheck all the Advanced options. This is the base Surface material. Add an Emissive material as a Label on the Toon material. Plug the gradient texture > (Opacity) of the Emissive material, set the Color to the same "aura" color as the Toon material, and uncheck all Advanced options except for "Visible in Reflections" and "Two-sided". This will also work with the Scattering Medium- just enable "Visible to Camera" in the Emissive options. Note that this setup must be rendered in Product mode; it doesn't work with Interior mode. Example render and matGraphs below.

Cheers,
Eric

[MWo]

Hello Eric.

That is a nice solution. As always you cracked the nut. Kudos to you!

And thank you a lot for sharing this.


Cheers
Marco

[Kent]

Wow Eric, that was a solution that I would never have thought of. I'm impressed!! It looks perfect!
A very BIG thanks to you. I think I owe you a beer or two!

And thank you too Marco for trying to help me! That was very much appreciated!

I'm happy! 

Kind regards,
Kent