I know this is an old topic, but I'm hoping someone can help me with a current issue using Siger's Thin Film plugin with Corona.
I have a client that wants to showcase a lot of Dichroic film panels in the 3D visuals I'm creating for them. They shared the attached reference images, one used on a transparent substrate (Dichroic_Transparent) and the other on a white opaque substrate (Dichroic_Opaque). I've attempted to replicate it using Siger's Thin Film but I'm getting solid banding (Dichroic_Thin Film), where, in reality, it looks to be a more gentle fade between colours. I have also attempted to replicate it manually by layering falloff maps with the CoronaMix Map, but ended up coming back to Thin Film. My Dichroic material settings are attached.
Does anybody have any recommendations on how to best replicate the real world look of this material? Is there any way to smooth out the colours in the Thin Film shader?
TIA
Here some planning of the shot and scene should be done as this is something not easily rendered and can cause huge render times possibly, so try to look for optimizations.
Mainly you have two things to control
• The surface color of the glass panels and/or
• The color of their shadow or the real physical effect of a colored glass.
If going for full physicality, i.e. colored shadows, caustics shall be enabled. Then you control the shadow color only by volumetric absorption. Here simple gradient or any other map alike would do.
Why do I mentioned this. You may look at the glass panel from different angles and it may appear colored differently but the shadows it creates are constant, not dependent on any angle.
So for maximum physicality use volumetric absorption for glass panels and for diffuse/base color any falloff (even in Light/Shadow mode which I tested and it gave interesting results) which fits your needs/taste can be used. Mainly simple falloff with two colors you choose will do fine. The rest e.g. cells or so can be achieved with refraction/reflection glossiness and even with diffuse.
See attached some examples I got. Everything is a simple CoronaMtl/CoronaPhysicalMtl with general falloffs, mapped differently.
