Rendering A Scene With Reflectivity-Help?????

[Kruzr]

'Morning all.....I have a question about rendering & reflectivity??? I've been meaning to ask this for quite some time now. I create a scene with a flat plane for the ground & a sphere object sitting on top of the ground. I know how to save the fully render scene & use it as a texture for the reflectivity map of an object's attributes. What I don't understand is: In the Render / Modifiers / Enviroment Tab, there are switches for Texture / Color / Scene etc. I can apply any of these switches during "Best" Render mode & I see no difference in the rendered image??? Example: I place a Plane3D in the scene for the ground & give it Material Attributes - I create a new layer - I then place a Sphere3D in that layer & locate it just on the surface of the Plane3D. I give the Sphere3D Material Attributes. When I render in Best Mode & choose any of the Render / Modifiers /Enviroment, Texture - Color - Scene, I get no difference in the final image??? Is there something I'm missing??? I'd like to see the ground reflect in the Sphere or the Sphere reflect on the ground or both. I was assuming that if one were to select the "Enviroment" switch it would reflect the scene onto the objects, as described....."Reflect Scene / Use the current scene as an enviroment map - Note, used by best render mode." Anyway.....if anybody can throw some light on this subject for me, ( Maybe Pixolator ), or any one else, I would sure appreciate it! I'll check back later for any help & thanks in advance. Have a good one..... Mark.

[CDEdwards]

You probably all ready know this, but first of all, you have to set the Reflectivity in the material you want to reflect. Another thing to note is that some materials, like the Reflected Map, use an ABMap in the material itself. You can change that in the Material: Modifiers: S# pallettes. In addition to that, try playing with the Render: Environment: Field of View slider. Also, try placing transparent objects in your image. In my experiences, sometimes the difference between Best Render and Preview Render are subtle. In the 1.03 demo, Best Render seems to ignore material transparency options, and Fast Render is actually better than the Best Render. Hope this helps some.

[Digits]

Hi Kruzr

You have got the right idea about the enviroment settings, it does control what you want reflected. The material that you are using for your plane and sphere must have some reflective properties for this to work. Modifiy your materal for 100% reflectivity (or less) to see any effect. Also, the field of view setting makes a big difference, I usually use from 80 to 100.
If you want to give the illusion that one object is reflecting off the other, use the Texture selection and make a texture without the object that you want this to be projected on is not in the scene.

Hopefully, someone else can add thier findings to this, but that is basically it.

check out my image on my gallery page for an example of enviromental reflectivity. It was done by placing a reflective plane behind my objects and using a texture map setting.

Digit's Z-Place Gallery

you will only get enviromental relection and true transparency in Best Render

[Kruzr]

Thanks CDE & Digits.....I figured out what some of the problem was - I had to bump up the Render / Enviroment / Repeat from the default #1 to #5, now I get a reflection of the scene on my sphere. What I was really looking for was to have my object reflected onto the ground. In this section of an image below - by Pixolator - you can see the reflection of his object clearly on the ground. Maybe he can give a quick tut on how he achieved this, or maybe it's an illusion??? Thanks again for your help. See'ya a little later..... Mark.

[Digits]

Perhaps, can't experiment here, but using a texture of the object that is flipped 180 degrees?

I know Southern has done things similiar in a few of his images, perhaps he will share the secret.

[Kruzr]

Hey Digits.....Yea, I've been playing with the same ideas you suggested, but I was kind'a hoping for an easier & quicker solution. Hahaha. Always looking to cut corners. By the way.....I don't want you to get upset or anything like that - BUT - I just got an e-mail from your boss, he wanted to know if I've seen you posting on ZBCentral during your work hours????? Naturally, I told him that I never see any of your posts until after about 5:00 PM. Have a good one..... Mark.

[Digits]

Kruzr, I appreciate you keeping my clandesdine operations at Zbrush Central underwraps from my boss! Actually, I am quite the multitasker, I can be here and bored at work at the same time.
Hopefully, things will turn around and I will be busy again.

Actually, I wished you had told him 7:30 pm that is when I get home

[Digits]

Here is something that might work for you. Doesn't use Reflection at all



what I did was place the skull on a flat 2d plane which I had angled at about 40 degrees.

grabbed a texture of just the skull with MRGBZ tool

Flipped the texture

used the simple brush
stroke pallette select "Drag Rectangle"
set Z and RGB intensity to 100
(intensity would correspond to the illusion of how shiny the surface will be)

selected the same material as the 2d plane (pure black in this case with some noise added) so that it will appear that it is part of the table top.

drag out the upsidedown skull to approx size of model skull
press "W" to move it into position

I spect you could then add some distortion etc.. with a bump brush with blend set to 0
(should of tried it but didn't save my doc)

Hope that helps

[Slosh]

In reading through this thread, I see mention of Environmental Reflections in the Render palette and suggestions that one must increase reflectivity in the material modifiers, but I don't see it mentioned that the material modifier called "environment" is actually the one that corresponds with the environment reflection in render palette. Just in case anyone else is wondering.