• Maxon Cinema 4D

  Fresnel

  Posted by Craig Whitaker on January 25, 2011 at 2:17 pm

  Trying to understand exactly what the Fresnel is doing…

  I dropped a HDRI onto a Sky object and rendered an object with a preset metal texture applied to it…all is well. How I’m understanding the render is that the Fresnel gradient isn’t driving the transparency of the HDRI map, but actually placing the black and white colors on top…essentially overriding the HDRI reflection. Is this what’s going on?

  Thank you very much.

  Best,
  Craig

  Craig Whitaker
  MFA Candidate
  New York University
  http://www.craigwhitaker.net

  André Irniger replied 15 years, 6 months ago 2 Members · 1 Reply
• 1 Reply

• 

  André Irniger

  January 25, 2011 at 2:32 pm

  [craig whit] “How I’m understanding the render is that the Fresnel gradient isn’t driving the transparency of the HDRI map, but actually placing the black and white colors on top”

  Hy there,

  hmm, I don’t understand your question fully. But the Fresnel does not overlay any black or white.

  The fresnel will do the following:

  It allows any attribute to vary according to the viewing angle. That means, if you have a fresnel in the transparency channel, things will look more transparent (now this depends on the black-white distribution in the fresnel) if you have a more perpendicular view and more opaque if the angle is steep. You could invert the effect with exchanging white and black in the gradient.

  Cheers,
  André

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