Making a more realistic wine glass

Greetings All!

I would like to make a transparent glass object, such as a wine glass for instance. However, I would like to go further than the mininal solution = a model of a wine glass, with a light blue/gray skin and with the 'transparent' flag 'on'.

I think the object would be a little more interesting-looking if it was almost totally transparent but if at the same time it had a strong, non-transparent specular effect on it.

I tried it all sorts of ways but everytime I do something to the model to make it more transparent, like an 'overlay flag' together with a black skin, or playing with the model's alpha, or the 'flare' flag, the exact same thing happens to the specular effect: it becomes transparent as well.

Does anybody know if it is possible to make a model transparent or invisible while keeping a strong specular effect on it? I searched the forum for an answer but could not find any...

Many Thanks in advance,

Thomas Gisiger aka hondarider

You might be interested in an effect similar to RenderMonkey's Glass_fx. Look into it if you can.

Here's a shot from RenderMonkey:

http://www.conitecserver.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=426054&page=2&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=&fpart=1#426054

Thank you very much Steempipe and Ello!

The effect you guys mention looks waaaaaay better than what I had in mind. It looks awesome actually.

Let's see then if a total beginner with shaders, like me, can get the effect to work...

Thanks again,

Hondarider