I would like to know how to create a better reflection in poser 6. I've managed to create a reflection in the simple option of the material room (attached) but it is far too light. I have never used nodes but it looks as though I may have to venture into the advanced and try. Can anyone talk a nodes newbie through what I must do, if I have to go into the advanced materials. I have tried reflecting through lights and colour in the simple materials and then without and that's the result.

best way is to just find a nice empty day, sit down, and screw off see what effect all the nodes have, and all the settings then once you know what you have, you can figure out how to make what you need/want :) as for basic reflecting, choose the reflective object goto advanced and put down a reflect, node and plug into reflection color, adjust variables on the node, and done

This rig works well. Only one of many mirror textures. Best Wishes

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?Form.ShowMessage=2534286

Note: the image map can be whatever you choose. It will display 'behind' your foreground figure. Here's another link by diolma (#9.) I think altogether this is a pretty good thread on the subject. Rance

As you're using Poser 6, use the wacro in the material room for setting up a reflection and then tweak the settings. It's quick, easy to do and gives some idea to what to do.

As a start, set the diffuse & ambient colours of the reflecting surface to 0 (black). Anything in these will be included in the reflection, and will tend to "wash it out". The "Background" in the reflect node is exactly that - it's intended for a picture that shows "what's in the background". I haven't worked out the best way to use this yet. My current (simple) method is to add anything I want in the (scene's) background into the scene, set the "reflect" background to black (I think, I'm going on a wonky memory here - it was either total black or total white..) There's scope here for improvement, but I haven't worked it out yet..:-))

I've recently been working through the various reflection parameters and how the various colours interact. I'll be putting this up on my site in the next day or so. In the meantime, yes, Background should be black. It appears to add to the surface colour of the reflective object. If your reflecting object is red, for example, and you set Background to white, the reflecting object is coloured pink. Black on the other hand does not affect the surface colour of the reflector.

Reflect can be on any light, too. It's a relation between reflective surface, reflected object and camera. Iow, you can have reflect on a global with no shadow pointing into space and get the same result. This frees up your primary shadow casting light to get the job done right(Shadowmap or RayTrace). "Add reflection" command also auto- connects to an existing backgound pic if in place. Connecting an image map to a light can preoduce nice effects... Generally the more "bounces" the better (resource intensive though).

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=1147769&Start=1&Artist=barrowlass&ByArtist=Yes

here's my settings for a recent gallery pic. It's for a window at night - don't know if that'll work for what you want. I've attached link to gallery pic to illustrate what the result is. Hope it helps

Barrowlass, you should try using the FESNEL node in P6 for windows, it basically does the same as reflect and refract, but with the added realism of angular based reflections. in other words, looking straight at the window will give less reflection that looking along the window. As for plugging an image_map into the background section of the reflect node, this becomes a great help when you are trying to incorperate something INTO a photo, if you want that something to have reflective surfaces (such as a car) then you will need it to reflect the invironment.

thanks - I didn't know about that - I was just playing round with reflections etc. It's good to learn from those in the know ;-) I'd converted a one sided square into a "window", giving it transparency, etc. I've added it to my props.