The Materials in the Twinmotion Assets Library feature a series of physically-based glass materials that are divided into two categories: Standard glass and Colored glass.
Standard and Colored Glass
The Standard glass materials are translucent, and are designed to meet the needs of architectural glazing. You can use them to simulate glass that is very transparent, and you can customize them to, for example, simulate very reflective glass. The materials in the Standard glass category show distortion when an index of refraction higher than 1.0 is used, and feature screen printed, etched, and frosted glass. You can tint standard glass, but it has a low level of color transmission compared to Colored glass.
The materials in the Colored glass category are more useful in the product design industry. They offer an exceptional level of color transmission and render colored shadows.They feature lacquered, tinted, and polychromatic glass. Colored glass does not, however, show distortion when you use an index of refraction higher than 1.0.
You can fully customize all glass materials, Standard and Colored, and they share the same parameters. If you customize a glass material, you can switch between Standard and Colored and keep the same applied parameter settings.
Limitations
Glass materials currently have the following limitations. These are subject to change but include:
Because the management of certain Index of refraction effects has been improved, the refractive and blurred effects (like frosted glass) are no longer visible in raster rendering.
Because all Glass materials now support the same features, the colors of the brick glass can no longer be customized. Backward compatibility for the legacy brick glass is not ensured, and users that have customized these colors will lose them.
New Glass materials cannot be used in substitution tables (WIP).
The resolution of shadows cast on surfaces with glass materials can be of lower quality. This is less noticeable on surfaces that have very transparent glass materials and a high level of metallicity.
When working in Raster mode (as opposed to Path Tracer mode), geometries that are superimposed and have surfaces with glass materials may not handle display priority correctly.
Artifacts are visible on shadows projected by complex geometries that use glass materials.
FAQ
How can I adjust the reflectivity of a glass material?
The more opaque the glass is—the closer the Opacity value is to 100%—the more Specular intensity influences reflectivity.
The more translucent the glass is—the closer the Opacity value is to 0%—the more the Index of Refraction influences reflectivity.
If the Opacity value is at 50%, the Specular intensity and Index of Refraction both influence reflectivity equally.
If the Opacity value is at 100%, the Index of Refraction is hidden and has no effect.
The nearer the Opacity value is to 0%, the more Specular contribution is managed by the Index of Refraction value.
If the Index of Refraction value equals 1.0 and the Opacity value equals 0%, the surface is invisible.
If the Index of Refraction value is higher than 1.0 and the Roughness value is higher than 0%, objects behind the surface are blurry.
If the Index of Refraction value is higher than 1.0, refraction is increased (except when using the Colored glass material).
For more information on the settings for Glass materials, refer to Settings for Glass Materials.