Thomas Tutorial?

[spleeve]

Thomas, I seem to remember that you were going to do a tutorial on the 'glossy' setting in the GI window. Did you ever do it?

I am trying to do blurry reflections from an HDRI map on a particular material in a scene and don't want to use the reflection/blur setting if I can avoid it because of the time hit.

Thanks.

Mike.

[Tomas Egger]

Ola Mike,

Which Tomas?

Thanksss

Tom

[Arketype]

Thomas, I seem to remember that you were going to do a tutorial on the 'glossy' setting in the GI window. Did you ever do it?

I am trying to do blurry reflections from an HDRI map on a particular material in a scene and don't want to use the reflection/blur setting if I can avoid it because of the time hit.

Thanks.

Mike.

Hi Mike,

The "Glossy" effect is really more of a specular highlight effect, not so much a "blurry reflection" effect.

To use GI glossy, simply load your HDRI map in the skymaps tab of the GI dialog, check the enabled box under skylight, and set the "color from" pop-up to use adaptive skymap. You can then click on the "glossy" button for the Glossy settings.

The blurriness/ softness of the specular is controlled by the base angle. A value between 10 and 15 works pretty well. If the value is too low your speculars will often look "spotty".

The "amount" works as a multiplier to brighten glossy highlights. This is the global setting and will increase all glossy specular highlights. I usually use a value between 1 and 4.

You can adjust the amount of glossy reflection on a material by material basis by adjusting the falloff in the specular tab of an object's material.

This functions as a second multiplier for glossy speculars. You can set this somewhere between 1 and 2 for glossy materials like plastic and glass, or set it to low values like .1 for matte materials like wood.

Try some experimentation with some different HDRI maps, and a simple sphere to get the hang of the settings.

Good luck!

Dave

[spleeve]

Thanks Dave - and Tomas, my apologies for spelling your name wrong.

Just got V8 and am starting to experiment. I was watching one of Ian's tutorials and thought that he had suggested that the 'glossy' setting could be used as a blur in a more general sense.

My problem still remains. How to get fast blurred reflections in a specific material (while other materials like chrome keep their high, sharp reflectivity), while using HDRI maps in the rotoscoping, sky maps and world reflection and refraction tabs.

Still playing around but it takes a lot of time - even with the faster engine:!

Michael.

[redcode]

Thanks Dave - and Tomas, my apologies for spelling your name wrong.

Just got V8 and am starting to experiment. I was watching one of Ian's tutorials and thought that he had suggested that the 'glossy' setting could be used as a blur in a more general sense.

My problem still remains. How to get fast blurred reflections in a specific material (while other materials like chrome keep their high, sharp reflectivity), while using HDRI maps in the rotoscoping, sky maps and world reflection and refraction tabs.

Still playing around but it takes a lot of time - even with the faster engine:!

Michael.

I didn't use HDRI in my example, but is this something like what you are looking for? If it is, I will upload the project.

[spleeve]

I didn't use HDRI in my example, but is this something like what you are looking for? If it is, I will upload the project.

[Tomas Egger]

Hey Michael,

Take a look in the Mforge tabs, you can control if the reflection is full strength or not, same to diffuse, bump..

so, you can mix Mforge Shader and other textures and materials data...

Thanksss

Tom

[spleeve]

Hey Michael,

Take a look in the Mforge tabs, you can control if the reflection is full strength or not, same to diffuse, bump..

so, you can mix Mforge Shader and other textures and materials data...

Thanksss

Tom

Yes, but the material I am using now is a standard material with no plugs, just texture maps.

Michael.

[Tomas Egger]

Ola Michael,

Are you wanting to mix Mforge with Diffuse textures?

I attatched here a Mforge project which show How to use Diffuse textures togheter with Mforge “Saver” shaders.

Thanksss

Tom

SaverShaders.zip

[spleeve]

Ola Michael,

Are you wanting to mix Mforge with Diffuse textures?

I attatched here a Mforge project which show How to use Diffuse textures togheter with Mforge “Saver†shaders.

Thanksss

Tom

Sorry, I don't seem to be explaining myself very well.

I started off using Mforge but ran into some roadblocks that I just didn't want to spend the time solving. (I am aware of the tut you sent). So, I changed to just a standard material where I could control everything far more easily.

The problem now is trying to control the reflectivity of the HDRI.

If you take a look at the attachment the first image shows the (grey) material with a brushed texture map in the diffuse, specular, reflection and as a bump.

The second image just has the map in only the bump and diffuse.

What I want to do is control the reflectivity so that I get the effect of a dull, scratchy aluminium and to do this I want to use the map in the reflection channel. When I do this the reflection goes to 100% and the main reflection slider has no effect. 100% is just a little to strong for what I want.

Hope this is clearer. Am I missing something?

Michael.

---

Sorry, I don't seem to be explaining myself very well.

I started off using Mforge but ran into some roadblocks that I just didn't want to spend the time solving. (I am aware of the tut you sent). So, I changed to just a standard material where I could control everything far more easily.

The problem now is trying to control the reflectivity of the HDRI.

If you take a look at the attachment the first image shows the (grey) material with a brushed texture map in the diffuse, specular, reflection and as a bump.

The second image just has the map in only the bump and diffuse.

What I want to do is control the reflectivity so that I get the effect of a dull, scratchy aluminium and to do this I want to use the map in the reflection channel. When I do this the reflection goes to 100% and the main reflection slider has no effect. 100% is just a little to strong for what I want.

Hope this is clearer. Am I missing something?

Michael.

and the images - which I hope load this time.

[Arketype]

Hi Michael,

When you place a map in the reflectivity channel of a material it overrides the main reflectivity slider (as you noted).

The easiest way to control reflectivity is to darken/lighten your reflectivity texture in Photoshop and this also gives precise control (so a 20% black is 20% reflective)

You can also blur the HDR in Photoshop (make it VERY blurry) for more of a brushed look.

That should get you closer to what you are looking for, without affecting your render times.

Dave

[Tomas Egger]

Ola D,

Thanks a lot for your answer..

Tom

[spleeve]

Hi Michael,

When you place a map in the reflectivity channel of a material it overrides the main reflectivity slider (as you noted).

The easiest way to control reflectivity is to darken/lighten your reflectivity texture in Photoshop and this also gives precise control (so a 20% black is 20% reflective)

You can also blur the HDR in Photoshop (make it VERY blurry) for more of a brushed look.

That should get you closer to what you are looking for, without affecting your render times.

Dave

Thanks Dave, that explains a lot.

Michael.