How to control the mix of emission and transparency materials?

Question

I'm trying to make a glowing jellyfish.

I have the model, but I have a problem when I want to blend the glowing material (located in the little thin tentacles jellyfish have) with the transparent one (being that material the main colour of the body) so that you cannot see a clear discontinuity between those materials.

I have tried following some tutorials, but I do not seem to find any of those that really solves my problem (all of them solve the problem with colours, but the shaders seem to not be included).

If anyone could help me, I would be really thankful.

Thanks in advance, Cdeluz

You can see in the image that there is like a red and blueish fade when the glow and the body of the jellyfish conect. that is the effect im looking for.

Could you please provide some examples? Reference photos, or just screenshot from your mesh? — cgslav, Jan 12 '18 at 22:32
Possible duplicate of How to blend(gradient effect) two different 3D materials, in cycles blender — cgslav, Jan 12 '18 at 22:43
@LukeD i have posted a reference image for you. thanks for your time — Cdeluz, Jan 12 '18 at 23:32
Could you mark exactly the parts from the question on the image? It's so subtle that's hard to tell where you have problem. — cgslav, Jan 12 '18 at 23:34

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 13 '18 at 01:05

As Artturi said, a mix shader can help transition between different shaders. In the example below, I've used vertex paint to make the black and white image that is used as a factor between a glowing/opaque pink material (mostly an emission shader) and a more transparent purple material (I've used the fresnel node to make the outer edges more opaque, as in the picture you uploaded).

The node setup is more complicated than it needs to be to illustrate the principle, but it does show how you might use it to get something like your picture.

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 12 '18 at 23:58

Use "mix shader" node and then for the factor of that node you can use different generated textures or you can paint your own textures. The transition between colors black and white will determine which parts are now done with either of those selected shaders.

How to control the mix of emission and transparency materials?

2 Answers2