Welcome to Archiglass Pro!

A shader specialized in structural and architectural glass for buildings and panels - whether it be for high-rise or skyscrapers, luxurious villas or decorative frames, it will prove a simple - yet incredibly realistic - material to use in your photorealistic exteriors renderings

There are four parameters:

Update V1.1:

There are five parameters:

REFLECTIVITY

This slider increases the specularity and decreases the reflection angle (and vice versa). Values are to be considered relative to the viewing distance, so there is no real upper/lower limit: to have a fully transparent glass from a distance, negative values can be used. Conversely, if there is need of full reflectivity even from a short distance, the values can be increased even up to 3 or 4  

RANDOM IMPERFECTIONS

Typically, high-rise buildings may have a coating on each single window to increase reflectivity (for aesthetics purpose); sometimes, the coating can show wearing and deformations, in addition to slight bending of the glass panels themselves. When this does happen, the building presents some differences in reflection angles and specularity between windows: this slider controls the amount of this effect. 

Depending on the size, typical values sit into decimals for a realistic minimal effect from zero (disabled) to 0.05 - 0.1  

INVERT COLOR

The use of this slider is to troubleshoot inverted coloration, when the geometry recognition gets inverted size. However, it can also be used to turn off the rim coloration effect entirely, by setting its value to 0.500 thus assigning same colors to the both the borders and the main faces. An Invert Color of 0.500 plus a Coloration of zero, disables any color effect whatsoever.

If the colors are right, there is no need to tweak it from zero

COLORATION

There can be a huge difference in characteristic between different manufacturers, the most prominent one being the glass coloration. Typical values range from zero (no coloration) to 2.000 

COLOR RANGE

Here you can tweak the nuance of the color itself, ranging from light blue to a very strong green. This is a slider that ranges from zero (blue) to 1 (green) and only affects the front faces’ color, not the rim

                         TYPICAL USE

Archiglass Pro is intended for buildings and structures which use glass panels as part of the insulation and static pressure process. That means, mostly flat or slightly curved panels, with thickness varying from 2 to 25 millimeters

And, while tests showed that it can work even with complex shapes and different measures, its primary role is to grant easy photorealism in exterior renderings

When using modifiers, the best practice is to put any Solidify modifier first at the top. An eventual Bevel modifier would go second, then everything else 

1) Solidify 

2) Bevel  

(Optional) 

3) Subdivision 

4) Array

5) Curve  

A few reminders:

Distance plays a major role in reflectivity

Double IOR (Index Of Refraction) will show multiple diffraction at certain angles

All the tests have been conducted with real-world scale in mind: at extremely large (or small) measurements, the imperfections can produce undesired results

Troubleshooting

If you experience strange color behavior, you can try one of these solutions:

• Applying rotation and scale transform
• Apply solidify modifier
• Apply curve modifier
• Invert color
• Disable coloration

Please do note that only the material is included in the file: models and scenes in the pictures may be included in different products in the future

HDRI is a CC0 from https://hdrihaven.com/