CompuServe Messages

While I wouldn't say that 3DS "does not produce proper reflections on flat surfaces" (it does but you just can't see 'em at certain map resolutions), here is why things are as they are, Jeff. A spherical reflection map basically creates a spherical surface around your mesh objects from which to reflect off of by using the surface normals of the mesh to sample the refmap. This means that a mesh with a curved surface, having non-parallel normals, is gonna sample quite a bit of even a low-res map, creating what you might characterize as a "proper" reflective quality. A flat mesh, however, with it's parallel normals is only gonna sample a small part of the refmap. So unless your refmap is of considerable resolution and/or has lots of detail, you're just not gonna see a whole lot of reflective detail in the material. Got it? Now, just simply create higher-res, higher-detail refmaps (forget refmap.gif for this!) for flat surfaces and you should be fine. Have fun! -Alan