The reflection of the box in the mirror is reflecting more of the floor than the box does.  I find this a little odd, can anyone explain it to me?  (In the larger renders that I'm doing the reflection of Andy's leg in the reflection of the floor is also stronger than the reflection in the non-reflected floor - it's just not as easy to see in this smaller version).

I'm using BB's wood shader from TrekkieGirl's Candle thread (one of these days I'll figure out how to link to a specific post in the forum).

Thanks in advance.

What are the settings on the mirror? I suspect they're over-hyped.

Material setting for the mirror.

That looks normal.

Are you sure the mirror reflection is reflecting more of the floor than the box does? (There may be a natural explanation for that too, but that's not what I'm after.) You can judge just by looking at the front of the box. You need to judge by rendering the part of the box that is actually being reflected.

I'm thinking that the mirror and box may be mutually reinforcing one another's reflectivity, but you wouldn't be able to tell that by looking at the front of the box. (Nor am I positive that would be physically correct, but at least it could narrow down what's going on.)

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ISTR 1.0 is not a realistic setting for even a mirror surface, since nothing in reality is perfectly reflective.

 

That's true... but even a 1.0 setting shouldn't reflect more strongly than it receives, I would think.

Try making the RayBias on the reflect node 0.025 and see what happens ;).

Lauire

scarlock, I think you are just misinterpreting what your eye is seeing in the image.

Assuming you have no fresnel effect in the box material, the only difference in the actual strength of the floor reflections from the box sides will be due to the variation in diffuse lighting levels of the floor itself.

So the rear (reflected) surfaces of the box are not 'reflecting more of the floor' than the sides in direct view. It only appears to the eye that they are.

Why? Simply because of the very low diffuse reflection on those unlit sides of the box - pretty close to zero. That's the reason you can see the floor reflections much more clearly, not because they are any stronger.

Izi

To test the theory, do a render with the Diffuse_value of the box shader set to zero. The reflections should be as strong on the front side of the box as on the rear - stronger, in fact, since the floor is more brightly lit in the foreground.

Izi