Opal Material

Opal is a milky, pale stone with a faint blue-white tint. It is cloudy rather than clear: light enters it but the scene behind it turns soft and hazy, while the surface reflects its surroundings very strongly. The result is a glowing, pearly stone that seems lit from within by whatever is around it.

Settings

• Env Map Intensity 2.2: the second-strongest reflections in the family after Diamond. The colours of the surroundings show across the milky surface, which is where opal's shifting look comes from.
• Roughness 0.15: the roughest of the clear stones except Jade, giving the cloudy body.
• Transmission 0.6: only part of the light passes through, so the stone reads as half solid.
• IOR 1.45: the lowest in the family, so the background is bent very little.
• Color pale blue-white: a cool, milky tint.
• Clearcoat 0.9 with Clearcoat Roughness 0.1: a glossy outer layer with soft highlights.

The preset does not add the rainbow flashes of real fire opal; the colour you see comes from what it reflects. Place it in a colourful environment or under coloured lights to bring more colour into the stone.

Use it for

Dreamy, soft jewellery visuals, pearls and moonstone-like accents, fantasy and celestial scenes, beauty and skincare brands, and pale, glowing lettering. For a calmer, green semi-opaque stone, see Jade.