Trying to get lighting, reflection and illumination right on a very large Layout is a bitch in PhotoView 360° 2013 compared to PhotoWorks 2010 (which was awkward but worked properly including transparency). 2014 will probably be easier with the new sunlight feature. Looks very promising ! But I seem to be doing something wrong in regards to transparency. In PhotoWorks 2010 I could use Grey Painted textures with 50% or 65% transparency settings to show inside workings of equipment properly.

PhotoView 2013 are barely transparent at even 90% transparency. They show up as very dark grey (blackish) faces that only show a hint of what is behind.

Very similar tot the blackish opaque written about at problems where the refraction rate is set to low for the light to refract through all the faces in between. In this case Setting refraction at 5 or higher should be ok (only 2 solid walls x 2 faces). Tried rendering at best setting (8 refractions), Maximum setting (10 refractions), manually set to 12 refractions. Also tried same with direct caustics & accurate environment lighting selected, and even with complete overlit lightning brightness. Transparent solids remain blackish opaque with only a hint of what is behind.

In the past I tested with PhotoView 360° 2011 version. Back then large Layouts were prohibitedly slow due to rendering in 6 or 8 passes. But isn't that how the effect of reflected and refracted light rays bouncing of faces is achieved ? Maxwell also keeps on cooking these bouncing rays around deeper and deeper untill you stop it because difference is hardly noticable. WHY IS THE STATISTICS OF PHOTOVIEW 2013 ALWAYS SHOWING 1 FRAME PASS AND CURRENT PASS 1/1 EVEN WHEN YOU GO TO 10 OR 12 REFRACTIONS ??? It doesn't seem to refract, although rendering time quadruples to 16 hours. I CANNOT FIND ANY SETTING TO ALTER AMOUNT OF RENDER PASSES ANYMORE ! !?? Can somebody shed some light on this PASS setting ?

Or should I be using a frosty and colored glass texture instead of a Paint texture ? But that would look funny.