3 — 5
A blob of clear glass hanging over vertical bands of pink, orange and ultramarine, the stripes bent through it.

Studies in Colour What saturatedlight does toglass and chrome

Lighting, materials, rendering

One object, one colour, one or two hard lights and one slow move — a series made without a client, to answer questions the client work keeps asking.

For
The studio’s own
Year
2026
A glossy black blob on hot pink, three coloured highlights running round its edge.
01Chrome on pink

Chrome

Chrome draws its lights as lines: three long softboxes — blue, orange and white — on a pink sweep.

How far can a colour be pushed before a material stops reading?

In the browser

Glass, chrome and satin, rebuilt to draw in the browser from the script’s own numbers — the same sets, colours, lights and lenses.

See them drawn live

The glass study earlier in its move, the stripes bent the other way.
02Glass, earlier in the move

Glass

Refracting as water does (an index of 1.33), so the bands behind it bend through it. A 60 mm lens at f/1.4 keeps them soft.

Red satin folding in deep shadow.
03Satin, red

Two renderers

Satin in EEVEE, close to what a browser can draw; glass and chrome in Cycles, where reflections of reflections need it.

The glass study later in its move: orange through the blob, the bands bent round it.
04Glass, later in the move
The chrome study later in its move: the black blob turned, its highlights moved round.
05Chrome, later in the move

Method

Each study is one script that Blender runs: run it again and the same frames come out, to the pixel. A move is fifty frames at 25 a second; the pictures here are frames 10 to 30.

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