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Is it possible to have light though a transparent material 'pick up' the color of that object?
To begin, I am a huge fan of what Global Illimination brings to the table as far as making objects feel like they actually exist within a tangible world. However, I find the current lighting/shadow systems a little lacking when it comes to transparent materials.
First, light shining through a transparent material does not pick up the color of the transparent material. In real life, light shining through any colored acrylic will cast a 'colored shadow' on the ground of the light that was able to pass through. After all my searching a 'check box' or simple procedure to simulate this effect has eluded me.
Second, GI does not fully take into account transparent colors in the GI calculation. I have figured out how to make transparent objects still be calculated in the GI system, by putting a Transparent lightmap parameter on that object. To my surprise, 'bounced' light does not take into account the color of the transparent object it passed through to make it between the surfaces.
Top left: Showing GI working with direct light 'bouncing' off front surface Top right: Showing GI not taking into account transparent materials in between surfaces that light is bouncing Bottom: Shadows not taking on the color of the transparent material after passing through
I can 'fake' some of this effect by using multiple spot lights, but it does not fix scenarios such as a 'sun' light. I am wondering, is there is a possible way to simulate this lighting effect (through a different shadow system?) while still making use of GI? Is there a way to augment the GI lighting parameters to take into account transparent colors? I realize this may take months to nail down and could involve feature requests. Thank you for any help in pointing/advising me in the right direction!
Top: Faked bouncing light, but the sun light isn't taking on the purple hue so the majority of the corridor is being GI lit by bouncing mostly white light around. Bottom: Faked setup using a shallow green spot light and a further-reaching purple light.
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