How do you make a plane with refection like mirror with some transparency? Waldoo Carrara Studio 1.1

Ok, I did this. I'm not really sure if this is what you're after. Note: enable the light through transparency option in the render settings. I'll post the resulting render in the next message. -Kix

-Kix

I took two balls, and a plane primitive and assembled them as shown. You can see the one ball is peeking out from behind the plane and is also partially seen through it. The other ball is reflected off the plane. Hope this helps. -Kix

-Kix

This is interesting, but confuses my eye. Something in the real world cannot be perfectly reflective and yet be semitransparent. I think the transparancy and reflectivity must add up to 100% or less for a realistic effect. For the sum to be above 100 would defy physics. :p Lammoth

Kixum, For some reason your shader did not work on my project. I tried to make like a lighthouse effect with the spotlight and reflection/trans mirror. Is Carrara capable to make light reflections directly from spotlight like laser with mirrors? Waldoo

-Waldo- I've never looked at it specifically and I'm not at my computer at the moment but the only way you can do what you're talking about is by using GI in Carrara and only to a limited extent. Lammoth What I did with my shader is certainly outside of real physics. That's one of the cool things about Carrara, you can defy reality if you want to. The shader is just an example. -Kix

-Kix

Let me clarify another point, GI is only in Carrara Studio 2.0 and higher (patched). -Kix

-Kix

Waldo, It seems that you are trying to get the light to reflect. Light in C (1&2) does not operate like the real world (one exception which I will get to in a bit). Light will not truly reflect off of reflective surfaces and will only go through transparent objects if the Light through Transparancy is checked in the Render Room. This adds to the render time immensely! The exception is in C2.x. The caustic renderer under Global Illumination WILL do reflected light, but at a high render time cost (more so than Light through Trans). You're almost better off doing a work-around. Place a spot light in front of the mirrored area pointing out and then test the render using Light through Transparancy. Don't know if this will help, and I know it is not the answer you were looking for... Best of luck and keep asking questions! Ken