#Auto Flat Reflection
17 messages in this thread
Anyone:
I'm having trouble getting Automatic Flat Reflection mapping to work the way I
think it should.
Let me start by saying that I'm no novice when it comes to 3DS but I just can't
figure what it is that I'm doing wrong.
Here goes. I've got five (5) letters (each an independent object) and a camera
inside a sphere. The faces on the sphere were flipped so the camera (and the
letters) can see the sky pattern material I mapped it with. The front of all
five letters use a flat mirror material. Each letter reflects the sky map (from
the inside of the sphere) as they independently rotate into position. EXCEPT,
for the right two letters. During their flight into position there are frames
when the second to the right letter DOES reflect the way it should and there
are frames when neither reflect anything but black. When, finally, they all
fall into position, the right two are completely back (except for the normal
reflection mapping around the edges).
Being inside a sphere, I dont see where they are getting black.
Here is what I've tried to fix the problem. I've tried selecting the faces of
each letter independently and applying the material. I've tried making the
sky-sphere smaller and moving it around. I've tried making five flat mirror
materials (MIRROR1, MIRROR2, etc) and assigning one to each letter. I've tried
changing the size of the automatic map from 100 to 150 to 50 (at 50 the second
to right letter did seem to reflect the way it should in more of the frames. I
would have expected 150 to work better if anything.)
Any ideas anyone. Any suggestions.
I'll send it over to ya, Jonas if would like to take a look at it.
Thanks for any help I can get.
Scott Foust
ZEBRA Graphics
(Now in Phoenix, AZ.)
Hi Scott,
<< I'll send it over to ya, Jonas if would like to take a look at it. >>
Upload it to the lib with Keywords "FOR AUTODESK REVIEW".
jonas[adesk]
Jonas:
<< Upload it to the lib with Keywords "FOR AUTODESK REVIEW". >>
It's there.
Scott.
Jonas:
Did you recieve the file I U/Led for your inspection? I sent it up on the 26th
but I dont see it here in the 3DS Lib. Just wanted to make sure it got to you.
Scott.
Hi Scott,
Did you send it directly to Jonas via mail? You might want to upload it again
to me. Jonas is on vacation this week, but I'll take a look at the file.
Bob
RRP:
>> Jonas is on vacation this week, but I'll take a look at the file.
Great!! Do you know the story so far (did you see the message I post about my
problem?)
Scott.
Scott,
I've been checking Jonas' mail while he is on vacation. It hasn't been recieved
while I've been doing that. If he recieved it before he left, I wouldn't know
about it.
If you want to send it again to my address, I will be happy to take a look at
it.
-Brian
Brian:
I've already sent the file to RRP [Adesk] 75300,2123 (Bob).
But hey, here comes a copy for you. The more heads that get together on
this….
Thanks,
Scott.
got the file.
-brian
Hi Scott,
Sorry about the delay, but I had a little luck with your model. It's
not the best of solutions, but it works.
First of all, I'm still not sure why the last two letters lost their
reflections. The only thing I have encountered that comes close to
this problem is on some of my models, I'll create the object and
apply the flat mirror exactly as the manual describes. I'll rend the
model and it looks great. I'll then save the model, then open it up
the next day and now the flat mirror doesn't work. I end up having
to re-create the object all over because nothing I do let's me attach
a flat mirror to the original.
To work around your model, I hid the last too 'E's. Then I made a
copy of the first one and moved it over to where the last ones were.
After rendering this scene, all the letters had reflections. I then
went to the keyframer and duplicated your keys from the original
object the new objects.
Granted, it's kind of convoluted, but I don't know of any way short
of re-building the last two characters to get the flat mirror applied
as expected.
I'm still trying to track down why this could have happened. If I can
find anything solid, I'll let you know. Bob
Bob:
>> … made a copy of the first one and moved it over to where the last ones
were.
There ya go, make copies of the one that works. Good Idea (Just lucky I had
duplicates).
My solution used a bit more brute force. I link a camera to the center of the
last two letters then use what they "saw" as an animated texture map. I had
trouble getting the others (mirrored letters that did work) to have the same
"feel". So I ended up doing them all that way. What a pain.
>> I'm still trying to track down why this could have happened. If I can find
anything solid, I'll let you know.
Great, I would like a REAL answer to this problem.
Thanks for taking time to try and solve this.
Almost makes me wish I was doing something wrong and there was a quick fix.
Scott.
Scott
I tried to map flat reflections to a rotating pyramid a few months ago and, no
matter what I did, I couldn't get the surrounding faces to reflect correctly. I
tried using a sphere and individual flat planes place around the pyramid.
I dropped the project and forgot to mention it here on CIS, but it would be
interesting if someone could make it work.
Maybe Jonas will have a solution. Thanks, Jonas!
TedB
!^NavFont01F0007MGHHH52BEE3
Ted:
As you probably saw, Jonas is going to take a look at my 3DS file.
Hopefully he'll be able to solve both our problems.
Scott.
>> I dropped the project and forgot to mention it here on CIS, but it
>> would be interesting if someone could make it work.
I put Lee up to that challenge when he first moved up here and he made
it work with no problems whatsoever. In his case, there was a
box-mapped cube surrounding the pyramid to provide something to be
reflected. Each plane of the pyramid had a flat-mirror material
assigned to the faces.
I suspect that the problem you and I ran into, is somehow related to a
shared vertex at the top of the pyramid. Lee lofted the pyramid with
deform-fit and the reflections worked on the first attempt! <aargh>
To Scott: Be certain that the flat-mirror material is assigned "by
face" to each "plane" that is reflective. If you assign "by object",
it won't work.
>> related to a shared vertex <<
Dave
I'll give Lee's advice a shot <thanks, Lee!!>. I did create a cube, scaled the
top vertices about the local axis, and welded the vertex. Very interesting!
Have you tried Meshpaint, yet? What a trip, now if I could only paint…….
TedB
!^NavFont01F000DMGJHG`MGbHGE28E04
>> Have you tried Meshpaint, yet? What a trip, now if I could only
>> paint…….
Yeah, I tinkered with the demo enough to know that it will show up as
a "computer expense" on the next project! <g>