Refractives (glass, water, ice)

Render glass, water, and ice with transparency, distortion, reflections, and value changes that describe their thickness and form.

Track it on the checklist

What it is

Refractive materials bend and scatter light. You show what appears through them, including the background, distortions, highlights, and internal reflections. A glass bottle can warp a striped background, while ice can carry nearby colors through its volume.

You manage sharp surface highlights, darker edge bands, distorted shapes, and color shifts from light passing through the material. Water also combines surface waves with transparency. Shallow water shows the ground more clearly, while deeper water becomes darker and more saturated, with reflections across the surface.

Value and edge changes suggest thickness and clarity. Thick glass or ice can have darker colored rims and complex internal shapes. Thin glass is simpler, while clean water shows sharper details and murky water shows softer, lower-contrast shapes below the surface.

Why it matters

This skill helps glass, water, and ice read as distinct materials with visible thickness, depth, and light transmission. Weak control can make them resemble foggy shapes, shiny plastic, or chalky rock, and can obscure the difference between reflected light and what appears through the material.

You can check it when

✓Paint glass against a patterned background and show the pattern through it with changes in shape, value, and color.
✓Render water and distinguish reflected areas, visible ground, and transparent depth through their value, edge, and surface changes.
✓Render ice with a solid, cold appearance by using internal fractures, trapped bubbles, value changes, and edge changes.
✓Convert a refractive-material study to grayscale and check that its three-dimensional structure remains readable through value.

Refractives (glass, water, ice)

What it is

Why it matters

You can check it when

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