Ok, am now at wits end....

I've read through all the tutorials I can manage to get my grubby little claws on, waded through literally hundreds of forum topics & discussions for a solution.. and still no answer that WORKS.  I've been struggling with this for days now.. and about to rip my hair out.

Background:  Image contains Vron's Rock (freebie add-on for rocklands at RDNA), A Gentle Muse's Watered Down freebie (at renderosity), and the kitty figure you see in my avatar (with little dragon's bushy tail 2 freebie at renderosity).  Here's the link a page I put up on my website so you can see this....  WARNING!  Image contains nudity (furry nudity, but still got breasts showin LOL)..

http://www.midnightmoondesigns.fws1.com/HelpMePleaseImages.html

Ok, I got my scene set up, decided my water needed some displacement.... and got large white blotches in the water.  I said, ok - its 'cus its reflecting nothing.  I tried adding skydome - the white patches turned black.  I resized & moved skydome to within an inch of its life (and the edges of the scene you see).. still black.  Removed skydome.  Surrounded scene with 3 more rocks (sides & front).  Black reflections AGAIN.  Removed them - reflections turned white again.

I tried plugging a background image into the reflection node - once again, the areas turned BLACK.

AAAARRRRGGGGGGGGGGG.

please.... make this headache go away??????  i have this feeling its something simple LOL.

(Cross-posted on Dr Geeps Forums)

For one thing, I wouldn't set up the water like that. That's the weirdest setup for water I have ever seen.  I can't post my own material settings for it at the moment - my Poser box is misbehaving - but head on over to Runtime DNA and check out the Node Cult forums.  Bagginsbill's water materials are the way to go.

One other thing - how far away is your Skydome relative to the water and what is the Yon setting on your camera?  I recommend setting Yon to at least 1000.  A low setting will mean distant objects won't render.

Why do you have a refract node, and why is it plugged into the diffuse and specular color? That's not going to behave well.

Take that off and we'll go from there.

I just knew BB would show up to save the day. 

LOL - ok, the water settings are what showed up with the water... i might have toyed with them in an attempt to make it work, but honestly - after this many days of fighting it - i cant remember.

will try bagginsbill's idea there, while wading through yet another forum ;)  - and the node cult forum i've avoided like the plague - guess now, i'll have to dive in chuckles

(and forgive my braindead - havent finished my first cup of coffee yet, and it takes about 10 to get my brain to work right LOL)

People make a lot of complicated shaders for water and it is really simple.

Do you want to see INTO the water (things under it) or not?

I assume you want some small ripples. The ripples can be a problem - there are some bugs in reflection in poser. I don't see a "Bias" parameter on your Reflect node - are you using Poser 5?

You want water that looks like this, right?

(edit due to crosspost) - oh yes ideedy Mr Bagginsbill, would sure like that!!!  Actually, with the waterfall i'm trying to put it, i need it a bit more "churny" - but the way yours is, would work if i left out the waterfall (which i may do this first round, cus that's a completely different headache)

Ok, did what Bagginsbill said. left ambient & specular turned on to 1.

STILL have white blotches.

Am wading through all the cool info on the node forums (not understanding even 1 percent of it, but i'm likin the pictures - particularly the water drops.).. maybe i can get this figured out (am about to try Sam's idea... (yay, a reload of skydome - weeeeeeeeeee LOL)

and, how do i find out how far away my skydome is relative to my stuff?  i remember i had it set to a scale of... i think around 25%, and lowered down so it appeared to be only a few "feet" above the top edge of the render.

Gonne add in skydome, and change the yon and try and see if that helps....

what's a yon?

second edit - Bagginsbill - do I leave the deault mat pose settings on skydome, or do i plug it into the alt diffuse & alt spec?

Yon didnt help =(  skydome in default spot, removed the refract on the water like Bagginsbill said...

am i allowed to cry like the girl i am, now?

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?message_id=2974687&ebot_calc_page#message_2974687

reading it now..
 trying to recreate your water - but in my "reflect" - i dont have that "raybias" thing .... where is it?  (is it a poser 7 thing?  i have 6)

did it.. it worked... the water is beautiful =D  posted the result on the same page i linked above....

still doesnt answer why my displacement went wonky LOL.... think i might stick to those bump things, seems they work better =D

You pointed out you don't see your skyball. That's because you aren't looking down enough to see it. The reflection of the background prop is covering water surface from that viewpoint. Remember, that reflection of an object is nearly the same height as the object itself from most viewing angles.

Displacement creates problems for reflections in poser. It can be done, but it requires careful adjustment of the RayBias, which you don't seem to have. This indicates to me you are not using an up to date version of Poser. I can't remember when the RayBias parameter was added, but it does exist in Poser 6 SR3, and was introduced specifically to deal with the "self shadowing" problems in reflection and refraction effects.

Even if you have RayBias to play with, there can still be problems when the surface is bent a lot.

Poser 6 prior to SR2 or 3 (can't remember which) and of course Poser 5 are really buggy with reflections and refractions. Poser 7 is still buggy in specific situations, but not as bad.

That would make sense LOL.. and no, as far I can remember, i've never updated my poser.  been of the mindset - if its stable, don't "fix" it LOL.

I'll be able to purchase 7 here in a few weeks (soon as PFD's come out - YAY for alaska!)... and yes, i intend on doing the updates on THAT one (heard if i don't, its buggy as HECK)

and wouldnt ya know, about the time i'm ready to play with cool features - i realize the poser i have needs to be updated LOL. =/

im gonna go rest for a while (call me perma-sick or somethin, i aint felt right all summer LOL), then go back to tackling this and then figuring out that matmatic thing and the.. what was the other one?  par.... par... parmatic!

Yeah, i know... i keep trying to tackle too much at once - but the more i get into ONE thing, the more i realize i need to know ANOTHER thing, which leads me to SOMETHING ELSE, which turns me around and takes me over THERE, and then pushes off the cliffs of insanity.

gotta love poser =D