Applying and Creating Materials - Mastering Lumion 3D - page 94

The Glass special feature
Although we can create our own textures, there are a few materials that cannot be
fully represented only by images. We saw previously how believable and great
the Water material is, but we also have the Glass material. The Glass material is a
special material because we can blend a texture with this material in Lumion. As an
example, we are going to use a texture that, although not the best, will make it easier
to see the results:
In some projects, we may have to mimic various types of glass, such as hammered
and security glass, but with Lumion's Glass material, that is practically impossible to
reproduce. However, we can add a texture to the surface and then tweak the Glass
material in order to achieve something close to the reality.
Hammered or security glass can be difficult to perceive, and this is the reason why
we will use the texture shown in the previous screenshot.
So, after importing or reloading the 3D model in Lumion, the first thing we have to
do is assign the Glass material to the surface with the texture. When we do this, the
texture is replaced by Lumion's material, but that's not the end of it. Notice that one
of the settings available to tweak the material is called Texture Influence, , so let's
bring the slider to the maximum value, which is 1 . At this point, we can start seeing
the texture on the glass, and if this is enough for you, just leave it. Otherwise, if you
tweak the Transparency slider to something like 0.7 , the result is more noticeable,
as shown in the following screenshot: