Hey all, I'm posting this as a little demonstration of the difference made by different reflection maps. Each of the posts in this will include a small thumbnail of the reflection map used, plus a render of a chrome sphere, a shopping trolley, and my Life Force Detector prop. The materials used for the chrome parts are dark grey diffure (object) colours, white specularity (highlight) colours, and white reflection colours. The chrome parts have both 'Multiplies' not ticked, and the reflection strength set around 60-80%. The highlight size in all metals is above 90% and below 100%. The only thing that changes between these images is the reflection map used, so that you can get an idea of how a different setting would use a different reflection map. An ***IMPORTANT*** thing to note: all the everything in these images has the *same* reflection map applied. ***Never ever ever*** apply different reflection maps to different materials unless you want your scene to scream fake. Even if you use a 'smeary grey' reflection map (which I recommend strongly against), if you do, use the same one for EVERYTHING with a reflection, be it chrome, steel, gold, glass, shiny plastic, or someone's EyeBalls. The reflection maps in this may seem tiny, but if you trim them out they will actually work for reflection maps on all but very close-up work despite the thumbnail size. They won't, however, work as backgrounds because they are far too small. Our first example is a picture taken in Antarctica by a research team there. This would work for many wintry landscapes, but of course the Arctic and Antarctic, the US Great Plains or Russian Steppes, or any plains like the Aussie Nullarbor during the Ice Age, and Hoth are your best uses.

This one uses a desert scene. If you're doing pictures of motorbikes in Arizona or West Australia, shiny jet fighters en route over Turkmenistan, or long silvery spaceships landing on Tatooine, this might be the sort of reflection map to go for.

This one's a grassland landscape. The uses for such a reflection map are as immense and expansive as the US Midwest, Northern Europe and the planet Naboo all combined.

I've long thought that Australian landscapes make for some of the prettiest reflection maps -- probably because I've long thought that Australia has the prettiest landscapes in general. I may be stuck in the US at the moment, but I can definitely say that if I were holding a chrome sphere in my hand in real life, I'd want it to be reflecting a pretty outbush scene like this. B^)

This one is designed for indoors, using a custom-drawn reflection map that's going to be the default reflection for my wife's upcoming Python Cage product. Notice the map is very simple, but when wrapped around the surface of chromium it makes for a very effective indoor reflection. It looks a bit odd on the shopping trolley because you generally don't se4e shopping trolleys inside someone's home, which this map definitely carries the feel of.

Hey feel like posting any Materials Library presets to the Free Stuff area or my Inbox(cainbrogan@attbi.com?) = )

This is a dreary, miserable, choppy seascape, perhaps in a decaying, dismal, overcast afterlife world. In fact, it is -- it's off the southern tip of New Jersey. You can see how the overcastness of the refelction map carries itself well in the reflections themselves. As a general rule, the weather in your reflection map should gel with the weather your scene is supposed to have. If this shopping trolley appeared in a subby summer scene it would look out of place and somehow wrong.

Cainbrogan: I'm using Poser 4, so I don't have any, but I will post the material {...} block when I'm done.

This one uses the corridor.jpg reflection map that you'll find inclued with most of my lightsabres. It's a scene of a Death Star corridor from a backdrop included with a kenner toy (can't recall which one). This looks okay on the shopping trolley because the inside of a death star is similar enough to the inside of one of those bulk supermarkets like Sam's Club or Cub Foods or something. Makes you think. B^) It fits especially well on the Life Force Detector.

This isa winter scene. If I wanted to do something that looks like what I expect is outside the window in this Philly winter (haven't gone outside today, but it would fit yesterday), I might use this.

This one uses the reflection map that will be included with my Hot Dog Cart which I hope will be available from DAZ soon. It's a collage of New York city street scenes but will work well for most urban settings. The high number of verticals and visible traffic contributes to the urban environment. Notice, though, that there's a visible singularity on the sphere itself. This is caused by the way the map is applied. Camera angles can hide it, but it's generally only noticable on spheres and oblate spheroids and such.

I generally advice against using 'smeary grey' reflection maps, but I'm going to include a few fro examples. This one may look fine to you, but it may not. To me, it looks fake. The thing is, even if it doesn't look fake to you, if the ones above don't look fake either, logic dictates that it would be better to go with the ones that don't look fake to anyone over the ones that look fake to some and not others.

This is an example of an even 'smearier grey' map that someone was using as a reflection map. (I'm afraid I'm not allowed to say who or where because of a technicality of the rules). This comes out very ineffective, to me, and is again why I advise against 'smeary grey' reflection maps.

For comparison, the map used in this one is an even 50% grey all over. You'd think that this would be identical to not using a map since there are no details to reflect. In fact, it's not. It doesn't show any reflection streaks, but it lightens the image much like but not exactly like using an ambient setting. In effect, this is the smearist grey possible, as it's all smeared into one shade.

If you're going to use a 'stock' map, I recommend one that at least contains some sort of scenery to reflect. This one uses the lakerem reflection map included with 3DSMax. I think it looks pretty good.

Finally, and for comparison to everything else, this is the exact same image with 'None' set for all the reflctives, turning off the reflection map. You can see here how dark a grey I used (I'll post the materials block for one of the chromes in a bit for numeric details).

Here's the material settings used to render the sphere using the Max reflection map.

        material Preview
                {
                KdColor 0.184314 0.184314 0.184314 1 
                KaColor 0 0 0 1 
                KsColor 1 1 1 1 
                TextureColor 1 1 1 1 
                NsExponent 1.96117 
                tMin 0 
                tMax 0 
                tExpo 0.6 
                bumpStrength 1 
                ksIgnoreTexture 0 
                reflectThruLights 0 
                reflectThruKd 0 
                textureMap NO_MAP
                bumpMap NO_MAP
                reflectionMap "C:3dsmax4MapsReflectionLAKE3.jpg"
                                0 0 
                transparencyMap NO_MAP
                ReflectionColor 1 1 1 1 
                reflectionStrength 0.753968 
                }

I want to thank whoever made the shopping trolley, but I'm afraid I've lost the README if there was one, and I don't know who to credit (Little_Dragon? Do you know? You know who made everything...)

.

Yes, they certainly make a huge difference..Sharen

Attached Link: http://www.confluence.org

Oh, yeah, almost forgot: All the landscapes except the one from Max came from www.confluence.org, a project to take a picture of every latitude/longitude crosspoint on Earth an are used in accordance with Fair Use for educational purposes. The originals are not so tiny or jpeg compressed -- that was done deliberately to protect the site's traffic draw. It's a cool site if you like travel and want to see pictures from around the world that may not be the standard 'picturesque' scenes that the tour guides and postcards will give you. If you want to see the images used in all their glory, you're gonna have to grace the site with some traffic. B^)

that was very interesting to see the difference maps can make. I think I like the corridor one best but I can see how you would use the different types of maps for different scenes to mesh the look together. Thankyou for posting that dodger it was very helpful :)

Thank, but I do'nt know how to use code very well...How about a screen shot then? = )

In all likelihood, _dodger, the trolley is by cal (Wayne Grindberg); it can be downloaded at Lannie's 3D Model World.

Thank you, this was definitely a good learning experience. I think I even have a product that uses the first smeary grey reflection map, will have to change that the next time I use those accessories. It will be interesting to see the results.

cainbrogan: if you're using P5 it wouldn't look anywhere similar anyway. The object (diffuse) colour is dark grey The highlight (specular) colour is White The ambient colours is black The Reflection colour is White The highlight (specular) strength is about 97% the reflection strength is 75% LD: thanks

Yup, that's the shopping trolley (shopping cart)!

I really appreciate this tutorial. It is incredibly helpful. Does the size of the map matter? I have some maps that are 100x100pixels. If I put that on a gown that is 1500x1500 will it work?

Thank you, this is very interesting and educational. Saved it for later reference. :)

Thanks, _dodger. I like how you're showing your point from all sides (no pun intented!). Willy

sue and jc: no worries. B^) lululee: The map size makes a difference sometimes. For a rough estimate (and this is a rough estimate, not guaranteed by any means) I generally make my maps about 1 1/2 times as big as I intend to make the largest chunk of reflecty chrome appear in the render, though the more curvaceous or detailed it is, the smaller you can get away with. Does that make sense? If you were going to use a cube made to have a chrome-effect that took up a roughly 50x50 pixel part of the screen (ignoring if anyting cuts in front of it), you'd want to have a reflection map at least 75x75 pixels -- ish. A sphere you could get away with less, and my life force detector you could get away with even less. If you applied a bumpmap, you could get away with tiny. To explain this in the most sensible terms, you reflection is giong to show a distorted and warped view of the map itself on its surface. You don't want to have any jaggies or jpeg compression artifacts in that reflection, but tha'ts it. Beyond that, intense details aren't necessary. Notice the Aussie outback one with the tree. That one was used at about twice the size shown here and with a 0% jpeg quality (thus the maximum compression).

Actually, I should simply be trying to inspire exploration: Try it with different sizes B^)

Nice post _dodger. I read your other quick-tut about this where you just explained everything. Doing it this way really shows how different things can look. Personally, I like the 'dungeon' reflection map that you've used in a ton of your images. Seems like that can work for alot of different scenes.