I made a refraction test and I'm a bit confused.

  For the test, I made a typical glass-container-with-water object in three
different ways:
  1. The water cylinder is just a bit smaller than the inner surface of the
glass cylinder.
  2. The water cylinder is just a bit bigger than the inner surface of the
glass cylinder.
  3. The glass cylinder has no inner surface (it's just like a solid object);
the glass cylinder is just inside it.

  One could think that at least 1 and 2 will produce a quite similar object.
However, the difference between them is very noticeable (see image). The
third case looks almost like the second one (except that the color of the
water is less filtered by the color of the glass). Notice also how the
top of third glass cylinder refracts the water more than the other two
(although this may be due to the max_trace_level).

  Why this difference between 1 and 2? Which of the three is the most
physically accurate?
  At least to me the first one looks the best (but I don't know if it's
the most realistic, physically speaking).

Post a reply to this message

Attachments:
Download 'glasstest.jpg' (60 KB)

Preview of image 'glasstest.jpg'