question: how to make glass, exterior rendering

[ae28402dk]

Hi, I have a problem with making good looking glass (for window). How to make a real looking glass with natural reflections on the outside? Is there any tutorial? How to set daylight/sun for exterior rendering?

[Juraj]

Good looking glass is matter of properly researching references. There are hundreds of type of glasses, so while you can create a basic glass by two ticks in Corona (reflection and refraction to 1.0) a more suitable can be, quite bit more.
High-rise glass panes have often a thin foil on outside that reflects more light than surface of pure glass, and reflection can be warped by pressure of the framing system (but people overdo this often...there are in fact, frames that keep the glass absolutely straight, even in skyscrappers, so don't warp them into extreme as some sort of dogma by default). Some window feature multi-pane system,etc..

So the "easy" way is to replicate the reality through proper model with correct thickness and blended shader (or multiple shaders depending on the side of the glass pane, as renderers don't exactly cope well with stacked surfaces on top of each other). This should simulate the reality as you see it on photography, but will be tougher to render (multiple surfaces that refract, inner surface reflections,etc..).
The harder but faster to render is to fake it through thin surfer and create more eloquent blended shader.

All the ways require to study the exact reference you wish to recreate. There is no tutorial for that.

Edit: Well, actually, the environment, light, light vs building position, light vs camera position,etc... all play very crucial role in capturing attractive look on glass facade.
But the answer is the same, studying the reference and connecting the dots in brain. After that, it's simple craftmanship to translate that info into CGI form.

[CML]

Juraj_Talcik, is right, choosing a good references is the first step at the working process.
Sometimes it is not about references just customer requirements, more transparency, more reflections and so on..
for the last 10 years i developed a workflow process that works for me every time.
 I Collected 2-4 Basics glass one for interiors and  for exteriors, and apply them as a starting point, in most cases the will be great for the first render.
now all we need to do is just adjust the materials a bit..more transparency, more reflections and so on..
I will upload the materials to cml website soon.

[Juraj]

Sometimes it is not about references just customer requirements, more transparency, more reflections and so on..

Hah, true :- ) I talked of ideal scenario, and obviously, totally forget of these requirements. It's maybe because I now pass the skyscrappers jobs, each one was nightmare for this reason !! ("Now more...no, now less!")
+1