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I am trying to create ceramic material, similiar to the one on the picture:

translucent shadow

However I can't figure out, how to add shadow from behind the ceramic part. Translucency nor SSS don't do the trick.

As you can see there is no shadow comming from Suzanne's chin.

enter image description here

Any idea?

Folowwing your advices, this is the result:

enter image description here

And here is the node tree

enter image description here

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    $\begingroup$ You need more light coming from behind the glass. $\endgroup$
    – PGmath
    Sep 5, 2015 at 2:14
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    $\begingroup$ And you should position the object nearer to the cup surface, as your fingers are, or you'll need a very strong light to get the effect visible. $\endgroup$
    – Carlo
    Sep 5, 2015 at 2:23
  • $\begingroup$ I tried to avoid braking of energy conservation rule, so I didn't want to use add shader. Howerver, it is right that boosted sun emission, placing it straight in front of camera and moving object closer to ceramics help a litle. It is also necessary to place it as close to material as possible. I also re-rendered it with object copying faces of the shape of the bowl and result popped out. You can see it in reedited question. Thanks guys $\endgroup$
    – salamun
    Sep 5, 2015 at 7:49

1 Answer 1

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enter image description here

This (poorly lit) example manages to get the kind of effect you're after. This is a question where a screenshot of your node setup for the glass material would really help.

The first thing to understand is that your bowl is not ceramic. Ceramic is neither transparent nor translucent. The effect you're after comes from translucent/opaque glass. But before you go diving for the Glass shader think about combining a Glossy and Translucent shader for volume, with SSS to further scatter light over the surface area.

Also key is the light source. I positioned a Sun lamp behind my bowl to give me the shadow through the bowl as you have done. I can also adjust the Sun's size to increase or decrease the shadow's edge within the bowl. (There's also a little Ambient Occlusion in the scene but this shouldn't affect the bowl shadow).

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    $\begingroup$ Volumetrics work fine in Cycles now, but the glass shader is not a volumetric shader. $\endgroup$
    – PGmath
    Sep 5, 2015 at 2:13
  • $\begingroup$ Ah - Thanks for that PGMath. Post edited. $\endgroup$
    – OroNZ
    Sep 5, 2015 at 2:20
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    $\begingroup$ That's correct @OroborosNZ, but there some ceramic material that are almost transparent actually exist. "Ceramic" is a wide definition. The bowls in the photo are probably made by porcelain. $\endgroup$
    – Carlo
    Sep 5, 2015 at 2:37
  • $\begingroup$ @Carlo: I agree mostly... Some ceramics are - well, not transparent, but translucent - and allow light through. My problem in classifying the material shown as 'ceramic' is that it's not helpful in terms of node construction: there is no 'Ceramic' shader. Also, a considerable amount of variance relies on a bowl's thickness: depending on the effect you're after a Glass shader may not work as well as a Glossy/Translucent combo, or vice versa, or some other method. As my math teacher used to say about equations, "There's more than one way to make a cup of tea" :) $\endgroup$
    – OroNZ
    Sep 5, 2015 at 4:08

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