Radiance Materials: The Basic Inventory

Plastic is one of the basic, two sided materials from which many specific surfaces can be created. The most obvious difference between plastic and metal is seen in specular highlights. Plastic surfaces have uncolored highlights while metal surfaces modify the color of highlights.

The balls are illuminated with the same white light, but the ball on the left exhibits green highlights. Unlike plastic, materials from the metal family modify the color of highlights. The color of plastic is defined in the scene description as a combination of red green and blue values ranging between 0 and 1 as demonstrated in the following figure:

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Nature does not make 100% reflectors so the r g b values are always less than one. If you accidentally increase a color value to greater than one, the object might begin to glow. The specular and roughness values combine to produce a wide variety of reflection effects. Be aware that a plastic surface rarely has a specularity greater than .3 and a roughness of greater than .2. If these values are increased beyond these limits, it is unlikely that you will find a physical match for the surface.

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Reflection effects on plastic produced from a range of specular and roughness values. Comparing the upper left and lower right image shows that roughness has no effect if the specularity is set to 0.

Metal specular values generally range between .5 and .99 while the roughness component rarely exceeds .2. The scene description primitive for metal follows: modifiermetal id 0 0 5 red green blue specularity roughness

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All of these metal balls have identical r g b values and are viewed under the same lighting conditions. Note how the balls in the top row reflect their surroundings and appear to get darker as specularity is increased. As the roughness component is increased across the second row, the reflected shape of the window is diffused and loses definition.

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Metal2 and Plastic2 are anisotropic surfaces which exhibit elliptical instead of round highlights. Examples of this surface effect can be seen when light reflects off brushed aluminum or from a poorly lacquered surface where the brush strokes are evident. Color and specularity are the same as for plastic and metal, but there are two additional sets of parameters which establish the orientation and shape of the elliptical reflections. The first is an unnormalized vector (ux uy uz) which orients the anisotropy. If no specific function file is required, a . is located after the vector as a placeholder. The shape of the elliptical highlight is defined by two values which effect the roughness along the orientation vector (ur ) and roughness perpendicular to the vector (vr). void metal2 id 4 ux uy uz . 0 6 red green blue specularity ur vr

The changes in highlights in the top row of pictures result from redirecting the orientation vector in the metal2 material. The bottom row demonstrates how the shape of the reflection changes by varying the two roughness values. When the roughness values are the same, round reflections result as shown in the center picture.. Plastic2 is defined with a similar scene description primitive: void plastic2 id 4 ux uy uz funcfile_or_. 0 6 red green blue specularity ur vr Glass is often encountered when modeling architectural projects. Windowpanes and other thin glass surfaces are made from this material which has a color variable and fixed refractive index. Rendering with Radiance B-10 Tutorial Example Rob Shakespeare

void glass 0 0 3 red green blue

id

Mirror is another common material, but unlike metal and plastic, it is one sided. The direction of the surface normal determines the mirrored side, and this direction results from the order in which the vertices are listed. The right hand rule is a convenient way to predict the direction of a surface normal in Radiance. void mirror 0 0 3 red green blue id

The top row of balls are made from mirror and glass materials. The bottom row demonstrates two different luminous materials. Note the hand in each of these pictures. The glow material in the lower left does not illuminate the hand. The center ball can illuminate other surfaces within a 1 unit radius of its center. Because the hand is within this 1 foot radius, there is no visible difference between the constrained effect of the glow material and the unconstrained effect of light. The material light enables surfaces to become light sources within a scene. The r g b values of light, in conjunction with the size of the surface area, define the quantity of luminous flux emitted from the surface. A Radiance program named lampcolor can be used to determine these r g b values void light 0 0 3 red green blue Rendering with Radiance id

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