There are some common problems faced when rendering refractive glass surfaces with Arnold. There are a few guidelines that need to be followed when modeling surfaces where there is a liquid to glass interface. The problem lies in how the renderer determines if we are entering or exiting an object, and what the incoming and outcoming interfaces are.
The standard_surface shader assumes outward facing normals, that objects are embedded in air, and that there is no overlapping between them.
Note: More information on nested dielectrics can be found here.
We will demonstrate the results obtained from the various modeling approaches below:
The tutorial is presented in the three following sections: