I don't know if this question has been asked and I hate being redundant but I am working on creating an office building with those reflective windows on the outside but you can see through on the inside. I've been messing around with the material properties for 2 hours and I think I'm missing someting... a UV MAP? but it's a poser object. Shouldn't it have a UV map? If there is a tutorial or a quick explanation for this I'd appreciate it.

I suppose I could do this in another program and transfer it? would it be easier? I'm a newbie. :)

Brian

Attached Link: http://www.uvmapper.com/

aha.. ok.. so what i'm doing is taking the standard poser box and I'm going split box in the UVmapper to create a UV map. Then on one side I'm going to create a reflective surface.. and on the other side create a near clear surface... and of course squash it to a window width and size.. am I going about this right? Brian

I haven't tried this, but that won't work. This is complicated. You have to create two material groups, one for each side of the box. Then you don't need a UV Map. In Poser 5 you could then apply two different glass materials to each side of the window. I am assuming you are on Poser 5 as you said you have been messing with materials. If you used a UV Map you would need to mess with Transmaps, and I don't think transmaps will give you the effect you are looking for. If you don't get it right, IM me your e-mail address and I will send you a window with two material groups, but I don't know if this will work.

I am experimenting myself now, will let you know if I get it right.

no.. I'm working with poser 4. I was messing with the material properties under the render tab. Hmmm... No easy way.. I know in other programs you can have a two sided "square" like 2d box and set opposite sides to different properties.. but... no such luck in poser. It's getting pretty complicated and I'm wondering if I should just abort creating this office building in poser and use a different program? Brian I'll IM you...

Attached Link: http://home.cfl.rr.com/usrey

ohhh!!! let me know! :))) PLEASE :)

Wait.. the reflection on the left side image should be of the characters face...

I don't know if Poser 4 can do real reflections. The Poser 4 render engine can't do raytracing like the Firefly engine. I will have to experiment. The pictures above are not doing reflections, but refractions. I will carry on working on this.

You will have to ask Stewer if this is possible, he knows much more than me about refections and the different rendering engines. I have never even done a reflection before today, lol, so I am as knowledgeable (spelling?) as what you are.

Well, you got better results than what I could do... Who is Stewer? Brian

If it is possiblee and I figure out from someone how to do it.. I'll make a tutorial... because it would be really great to complete this.. and this is the one obstacle in my way.. from making it look realistic... Brian

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/homepage.ez?Who=stewer

Thanks for your help. Come to think of it I have seen mirror effects in Poser I can't remember where though and from what I remember it was sort of faked... you know.. it's not crucial that I have this effect... Because in the day the building reflects mostly the sky.. and on the bottom reflecting part I can just take a render and mirror it in photoshop and put it on the building.. I won't be reflected as I walk up.. but that's ok... heheh... Brian

You can't make reflections in Poser 4. Only Poser 5 can do that. You can assign 2 material groups to the Poser box inside Poser, with the Grouping tool, then squash it :o)

Yes, Poser 4 has no ray tracing abilities, so it can't do proper reflections. This is partly why I upgraded to Poser 5, but it's no walk in the park in Poser 5, either!

The best way to do it would be like this. Open the window in uv mapper. Select Planar Map / Alignment = Z-axis / Split = By Orientation. This will give you a map of the 2 faces of your window, front and back. Now what you have to do is select one of the 2 parts of the map and assign a new material to it. You do this by going to Menu> Tools> Assign to> Material. If your window already has a material, like 'window', you can just select one part and call it 'inner', then select the other and call it 'outer'. Save the obj then re-import it into poser. It now has 2 materials, inner and outer. Now you can put a different reflection map on each side of the window. Like a sunset (or whatever) on the outer, and a room on the inner. Oh, and set the Object Colors for both materials to something fairly dark. mac