Layered Mats for Shoot-thru Walls

[Badgerfrog]

Hi all,

trying to maintain the GI bounce of walls and windows inside a room, but shoot with a longer lens from the other side of the wall (through the wall)

I can do this in physical with a C4D material on the wall (Alpha>Effects>Normal Direction) but can't make it work in corona with layered material

I can find the same Effects>Normal Direction in the layered material, but I must not be using it properly or setting up the component materials properly.

I have a diffuse color for the inside wall, then a material with only opacity checked (and turned down to zero) for the outside. In the layered material I have the diffuse in slot one and the transparent in slot two - with the mask for slot 1 set to Normal Direction.

I have tweaked it 60 different ways and can't make it work - any advice greatly appreciated - thanks in advance

[Badgerfrog]

Posting update in case helpful to anyone...

It seems you don't use Normal Direction in the mask section of the layered material. In the the transparent BACK material (that eventually lives in slot 2 of the layered material), you check opacity only, but keep the opacity at 100% - then, in the opacity, you add Texture>Effect>Normal Direction. Then you can use an 85mm lens and back up beyond the walls. (Also helps to have a display tag with backface culling checked so you can see what you are doing in the viewer - the Alpha/Normal setting only works on the rendered image)

[Badgerfrog]

Joke's on me. Turns out doesn't have to be layered. Normal direction works in opacity on the single front surface material. Somebody told me I had to use double sided in corona - not so with alpha. (What a waste of my own time - hope this prevents someone else from wasting theirs)

PS - I think corona is awesome

[hughannes]

That never occurred to me.
Up until now, I used the clipping feature in c4d's camera for this. With its obvious drawbacks. So, thank you for that.

However, in my test I noticed that one doesn't even need the normal direction shader for this to work. A simple transparent material works just fine, when assigned to either side (front or back, depending on your normal direction) and your wall material to the other side.