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Hi there,

I am hoping that one or two of you may know how to create a semi transparent material I can apply to silhouette type face me components in Sketchup / Maxwell render?

I have tried all manner of ready made materials, but none of them fit the bill...

Specifically if someone can tell me how to make a semi transparent material, in black or white as needed*, and also with a matte finish? [*Where the figures are against a light background i need to make them semi transparent black, or if they are against a dark background I need to make them semi transparent white... like ghosts images...]

Hope someone out there has done this before.

thanks again for your help.

One way to do this would be to create a new SketchUp material (say, drag one from the Colors-Named collection), and set its Opacity to 50% or so in SketchUp, leaving its Character set to "Automatic" in Maxwell. Such materials are translated by the plugin as being AGS, in order to try and render windows automatically, in the absence of any specific indication (as must be the case given SketchUp's rudimentary material definition) that this is what they should be. Or, on the other hand, here is a set of six diffuse semi-opaque MXMs that may work for you, three being white, and three being black, with 25%, 50%, and 75% opaque versions of each. So give those a try and let me know what you think -- I should probably add a material Character like this to the list of plugin material Characters.

You can also try my material here: http://www.maxwellrender.com/forum/view ... 07&t=38017

Best,
Jason.

Wow thanks guys! materials are great, I will try these out tonight hopefully.

JD Hill, yes adding this into the character list of materials would be very very welcome! The only problem with an AGS is that it will be reflective wont it? I guess there may well be a control for this, I haven't checked this yet. Thank you for the materials, very useful!

Half Life, Thank you a lot for your material, looks great... like the dot matrix seen on the edge of car windows which gives me an idea of where else I could use it!

Thanks again. This forum is really really useful.

Out of interest could this same effect be achieved with an SSS material character?

Probably not, as this should be applied to geometry which describes a volume. It can be done to some degree using an SSS (Single Sided) type, likely using negative asymmetry, depending on the desired effect.