Brazil for Rhino

Hello, I've tried to come up with a more convincing water material for the groundplane (waterplane?) to render yachts against. Andy helped me with a Brazil chrome material that has served well, but it is so dependent on scaling and I wish there was some way to add some tranparency, apparently not...

Here's another really good example: You can't see through the leaf at all; if there were blue sky in the background you would not see blue, only the color of the material the light is passing through. Nor can you make out any features of the ant's body, just the shadow that it casts. Can...