{ How to make TRANSPARENT OBJECTS in Blender Eevee }

Introduction

Want to create glass-like materials in Blender’s EEVEE? This beginner-friendly tutorial shows how to use the Principled BSDF shader to make objects transparent. You’ll learn the essential settings for windows, bottles, and other see-through surfaces, with a simple example that anyone can follow.

In particular we see how to set up the Principled BSDF Shader to make transparent objects in Blender.

For a visual breakdown of this subject, you may find my video discussion helpful:

DISCOVER MORE BLENDER TRICKS IN THIS YOUTUBE PLAYLIST

Download a Blender file with the transparent shader already applied.

Prepare the scene – Elements to be used

In this demonstration,

To show how to make transparent objects in Blender, we’ll use three colored spheres (Figure 1) to showcase transparency effects in Blender. The front object will be our focus as we transform it from an opaque obstruction (Figure 2) to a transparent material, revealing the objects behind it. This simple setup clearly illustrates how transparency affects both the object’s appearance and scene composition.

*Fig. 1: These are the objects to be used.*

*Fig. 2: Camera view, the object completely obstructs the view.*

Create a transparent object in Blender Eevee step by step

First we go to the rendering properties and activate the option “Screen Space Reflections” and inside this option we activate the “Refraction” checkbox, as shown in figures 3 and 4.

*Fig. 3: In the engine parameters we activate “Screen Space Reflections”.*

*Fig. 4: In the previous parameter we activate the “Refraction” checkbox.*

Select the object to make transparent and go to the material configuration, if it does not have any material assigned create a new material. In “Surface” choose “Principled BSDF”, as shown in figure 5.

*Fig. 5: Select the material to be set up as transparent.*

3. In the material properties we scroll until we reach the “Settings” part, activate the “Screen Space Refraction” option (figure 6) and write a value for the “Refraction Depth” parameter (figure 7), this value is used to calculate the path of the light inside the material.

*Fig. 6: In Settings we activate the “Screen Space Refraction” checkbox.*

*Fig. 7: We set a non-zero value for the “Refraction Depth” parameter.*

4. In the “Principled BSDF” Shader properties we increase the value of the transmission parameter.

*Fig. 8: We increase the value of the transmission parameter.*

Results

If you follow these tutorial step by step we get a transparent material applied to the object, as you can see in the following picture.

*Fig. 9: The object is now transparent, we can see the objects behind it.*

To make the material more translucent we can decrease the value of the “Roughness” parameter. That way the objects behind are not so distorted, in figure 11 you can see the result. You could also use a texture to give it roughness.

*Fig. 10: We set the roughness of the material, the lower the roughness, the smoother the surface will look.*

*Fig. 11: Objects behind are not as distorted as in figure 9.*

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