Making Glass

[Jarink]

Here's the short and dirty of how I'm trying to do it now...

Start off with a layer or two of partially transparent background, painted in roughly the shape of the glass.


Add shadow reflections. The trick with these is to fade in from the bottom and make the top edge sharp.


Ditto for the highlight reflections.


Play with opacities and there you go!

[Serval]

Looks nice.
But for the bubble effect I think the shade at the bottom should be less curved and maybe even curved slightly the other way.

[Jarink]

At first I though the curve should be the other way, but photos indicate that it's rather counter-intuitive.


Impatient Virgin
Impatient Virgin



I may try flattening it a bit and see if it looks better. Viewing angle is everything and some of the photos I used for reference were not from directly side-on.

[Serval]

Surprising indeed.
Maybe addin this flatter highlight in the bottom which can be seen in the first photo makes it feel different.

[Aircraftprofiles]

I have tried using the glass tutorial...and i think it turned out pretty good (great tutorial). I have attached a picture of my old glass look and the new one (which i think i'll keep using).

What do you think about it ?

[f22raptor2006]

That looks very good

Jarink could you just go over in detail the reflection bit because I'm confused how you've done that. The shadow and highlighting bit looks really confusing. Don't get how you got that kind of shape for the shadow etc... Thanks.

[Jarink]

Sorry 'bout the late reply!

The shape for the shadow and highlights will depend entirely on the shape of the original part. No big surprise there, I guess. If you look at the photos I posted, you want to look at the reflections if the light fixtures and other stuff to get clues about the shape and how it affects light.

The trick is to make a hard edge on one side (towards the shiniest parts) and fade the other way. The hard edge is what gives it the glossy look.

[victorhogan]

Hey nice tutorial..I need to go practice now.

[Mangas]

Very nice tutorial.
Jarink, can you explain, did you use gradient tool during the 1st phase or is it just several different brushes?

[Mangas]

I'm struggling thru it -- but nothin' comes out...
Whatever I do -- it looks like ...!

http://img171.imageshack.us/img171/6761/glass2h.jpg