#Water reflections ? how?
5 messages in this thread
Hi everybody
I finally spent my money by buying 3DS….after looking at different software
for a while. The good and interesting forum here played quiet a role in my
decision. Now I'm working through the tutorial….but people ask me already to
do some work for them.
I.e. accurate shadow edition seems quiet a challenge….but for the moment I
try to do some reflections on a "water" surface. I didn't do the water by one
of the built in routines, it's just a mesh (done by GIF to DXF conversion) and
I try to assign a auto-reflectif flat mirror material to the object.
Importing the DXF mesh as an object results in a reflection without responding
to the water "waves"…I tried to assign the material to the individual faces,
but no reflection maps at all are calculated.
How can I do these reflections? If at all…
Does smoothing the faces affect the ability to apply a flat mirroring material?
………………….thank you for any hints and tips…..Alexander.
Alex:
Welcome to 3D Studio! What you want to do for your water is smooth it and
apply a standard automatic reflection map, NOT a flat one!
That should do it…
Greg Pyros
Greg:
Thanks a lot for the quick response….
The standard automatic reflection map works great. I really like it… seems I
have to start designing all my houses at the seaside (what about exchanging a
piece of swiss mountains for a piece of nice u.s. pacific sea? …would fit my
sailing needs)
I hope, after working through the tutorial, my questions will be more
sophisticated…like where to spend all the money I earnd doing 3DS work…
Thanks again…………………………………Alexander.
Alexander,
I can't be certain about the type of object you are trying to apply an
automatic reflection flat mirror material to, but these things should be noted:
The flat mirror material must be assigned at the _face level_ to work
correctly. The renderer will use the first face in the face list of the object
to do the reflection and this cannot be consistently predicted. You must select
a _single face_ or a selection set of _co-planer faces_ to apply the flat
reflection map properly. You might try a cubic environment map to reflect off a
complex, rounded object.
Please see the reference manual starting on page 9-37 for more reflection map
information.
Hope this helps,
Alan Iglesias
Alan:
Thanks for the quick response! The problem was solved by using standard
automatic reflection map.
I managed to do the mirroring by face level now, but had quiet a while
experimenting with the faces and normal-fliping. I import ACAD DXF in 3DS and
it seems that normal 2-sided materials work always well (for lazy people who
don't want to flip hundreds of faces), but the flat mirror seems to be always
just on one side ?! As I said, I'm just starting to use 3DS, but instead of
having the time for the tutorial, I already have to do some stills for an
architectural competition ….which forces me to "learn" very quickly….
Thanks again………………………………….Alexander.