Metallic Materials

To create a metallic material, we need to add a reflection layer. Then we have to increase the reflection
amount using the reflection IOR value. The reflection IOR value is located in the Fresnel effect inside the
reflection layer mapping.
How to created a metallic material?
Basic Chrome material:
- Add a reflection layer
- click on the M near the Reflection
color. You will see the fresnel effect
enable by default.
- Increase the IOR value 20.

Notes:
We considerate metallic reflection an
IOR value between 6 to 26.
IOR value between 1 to 5 are mostly
plastic reflection.

Filter
By default the color of the reflection is white, But you can tint the reflection using the reflection Filter.
This option allows you to change the color of the reflection producing different metals color.

Glossiness
In the reflection layer you will find two glossiness option. The Hilight glossiness and the reflection
glossiness. The Hilight is create by reflecting a very bright light source in the material. The Hilight
Glossiness control the shape of the Hilight. The Hilight value has to be the same of the Reflection
Glossiness in order to be physically correct. Some types of material do not reflect the light clearly due
they have uneven surfaces. In that case we use the Reflection Glossiness to control the sharpness of the
reflection. You could find this effect in some matte finish metal, wood, plastics, etc.

Note:
All of these materials were rendered with the same Hilight and Reflection glossiness (0.8). Notice that the
reflection is not 100% sharp. With the glossiness we can add some blurriness to the materials and in this
way we could make anodize metals and blurry metal. The same option should be use to make blurry
plastics and some wood materials.
Tip:
You can increase the glossiness subdivision to improve the quality of the glossiness and remove the
noise. This option will increase the rendering time on this material. A good value for the subdivision could
be something between 22 - 40. We usually recommend 32 for the subdivision.

Refraction Layer (Glass Materials)

Refraction is the phenomenon of light going under the surface of an object and the ray get bended inside
producing, in this case, the glass material.
In V-Ray for Sketchup we can create a glass material by adding a refraction layer. Usually the refraction
layer is bellow the Diffuse layer and the diffuse layer block the effect of the Refraction layer. In order to be
able to see the refraction effect, we have to use transparency in the diffuse layer.

How to create a Glass material?

Basic Glass material:
- Add a reflection layer
- Add a refraction layer
- Change the diffuse layer transparency
color to 100% white

To add a Refraction layer:

- Right click over the material name
- Select create Layer
- Select Refraction layer

Note:
If you use a gray-scale color in the diffuse
transparency slot, you will make the
diffuse
layer
semi-transparency.
Therefore, you will be able to see the
diffuse color at some grade.
Tips:
If you remove the refraction layer to a
glass material, you can create fake
Architectural glass with only Reflection
layer. Due the material doesnt have the
refraction layer the calculation for this
material is faster. You can use this
material in a simple plane to simulate
glass windows

Real Glass Material

Fake Architectual Glass

Tinted Glass Materials

There are two basic way to tint a glass material using V-Ray. The first one is using the refraction color. As
you remember in the reflection layer we use the filter to tint the reflection, in the refraction layer we could
use the refraction color to tint the refraction. This option will tint the reflection even around the geometry.
This is not the physically correct way for most of the glass material, but it is very useful to create Plexiglas
and transparent plastics.
The second method to tint the reflection layer is using the Fog Color. This is the physically correct effect,
because the coloration of the refraction depend on the thickness of the object. Thicker part of the object
will appears darker while thinner parts will appear lighter

Using the Refraction color

How to tint the reflection using the
Refraction color?
We need to have a basic glass material:
- Click on the refraction color
- Select the desire color for the glass.

Here we have some examples of tinted glass using the refraction color. Notice how the color is even
though the whole model. The first picture is just to show you how the material looks without color.

Using the Refraction color

How to tint the reflection using the Fog
color?
We need to have a basic glass material:
Click
on
the
Fog
color
- Select the desire color for the glass
- Adjust the Fog color multiplier to 0.1 (just
for this example, this value could be
different, depending on the desired color
tone)

Here we have some examples of tinted glass using the Fog color. Notice how the color is change
depending on the thickness of the model. The thinner areas appear lighter, while the thicker areas appear
darker. This is the physically correct effect of the tinted materials.
The fog color depends of three aspect, the size of the object, the fog color and the color multiplier. For
example if you increase the color multiplier the thicker part will appear darker and vice-verse.

Glossiness
As in the reflection layer, we also have a glossiness option in the refraction layer to add blurriness into the
glass material. The glossiness option is very useful to create materials as frosted glass or acid glass.

Glossiness = 1.0

Glossiness = 0.8

Glossiness = 0.4

IOR Value
As in the reflection layer, we also have a glossiness option in the refraction layer to add blurriness into the
glass material. The glossiness option is very useful to create materials as frosted glass or acid glass.

IOR value = 1.0

IOR value = 1.55

IOR value = 2.417

IOR value = 4.0

All the renders above were rendered using different IOR value. Notice how the effect is stronger if we
increase the IOR value.