Hi all, I've been trying to use reflection maps on items in Poser 5, but they keep coming out all washed out, or fading out the texture map beneath them. I've been playing with the nodes in the texture room, but haven't found a close match yet, so I'm looking for a formula. I've gotten some ray-traced reflections to look oik, but when I have a black background and want to map a scene on say, gold metal costume pieces, it's not working. I'm used to building textures in Bryce, but the whole nodes thing is taking some getting used to. Thanks!

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?Form.ShowMessage=873651

Old P4 relflection maps are now referred to (in P5) as environment maps - which is in line with the terminology used elsewhere in the industry. Much of the problems seems to be that the manual didn't make this clear, perhaps the perception was that everyone would move directly over to ray traced reflections. Bill

I tried the link from the image, but the problem I'm having is the diffuse color. The object has a texture map, so if I make it black, it fades out. I had mine set up pretty much like it is in Kiera's message, but it's not quite the look I was hoping for. I've played with Shaders in other programs before, and environment maps were easily made, but I'm beginning to wonder if P5 has that ability. I do a lot of image compositing, so I don't always want ray traced reflections, but I may not have an alternative. Thanks for the help, and if anyone can figure this out, I'd love to know how! -Tempus

The ray-traced reflections have a few problems for me as well. I've gotten some odd triangle shapes where there aren't supposed to be any on a car, and on a pane of glass. I love the new lighting in the renderer, but getting some good reflections are turning out to be a challenge. I used to import figures into Bryce for more advanced texture options, and was hoping not to have to do that anymore. It's got a much better renderer than P4, but I haven't been able to build the shader for reflections that I want to put on an object. I'm still working with it, but I'm not sure if the goal is attainable... -Tempus

Show us a pic of the effect you want.

Did you try making the diffuse color a reflect map and the background color of the refelect map connected to your image map (click on the plug just right of the black box labled backgroung in the refelect box)?

I got a pretty good simulation by using the alternate diffuse color as a second texture on a sphere map, set to about 50% grey. The two maps together pretty much achieve the look I was trying to get. I get more or less of the reflective look by making the color more black or white. I'll make an example later tonight and post it here. Thanks for the suggestions!

Good job. ;) Yes, if you want a texture AND a reflection map, use the alternate diffuse channel.

Thanks for the help, Kiera, and others. Kid of weird not using the reflection channel, but the program will give me the results I want. Didn't want to blame my tools!