Playing Around A Little Bit With The New Refract Feature

[WingedOne]

Here's a quick test I did with the ZBrush 1.55 demo of the new Refraction feature.

I set the rgb amount of the tool to 0 and set the refract level to 33 (about right for water).

With some experimenting around I noticed that refract is based on colors only, so I duplicated the layer with the cubical skin background on it, rendered it and then baked it, and then placed the refracting object on that layer. I moved that layer back about 10 pixols so the background part of the layer was behind the original layer, and re-rendered the unbaked layer.

If you use negative values for refraction then it comes out looking like reflection, so it could be used for both.

This is going to come in handy. :)

http://www2.zbrushcentral.com/zbc_uploads/user_image-1041094596vrc.jpg

[filament9]

I can see the possibilities here. The next update to ZB should get the creative juices flowing big time, for everyone. :)

[aurick]

Also, a tip to help you out is that the refraction is polygon-based. So increasing the mesh density (Tool>Modifiers>Divide) will increase the resolution and smoothness of the refraction.

By the way, refraction also only works with the current layer. Objects on other layers will not be refracted. This is a bit different from material-based transparency, which requires that object be on other layers. :) Just something to bear in mind.

[s o u t h e r n]

Looks like I had my back tunred for too long. I missed this feature.

G

[aurick]

Glen, the refraction feature is in the Draw palette in the Demo 1.55.

[The Namek]

hehe , I missed this one in the demo too , I'll check it out now , thx for pointing it out wingedone :)