Graphics Programs Reference
In-Depth Information
Give 'er a render!
Note
When you have a surface that you're moder-
ately happy with, right-click on it and copy it
before you go making changes. You could
go so far as to save it or add it to your pre-
sets if you wanted to, but always give
yourself the ability to go back to something
you know was acceptable, lest you find
yourself having buggered up something that
at one time was perfectly fine.
Step 2: “Realistic”
Reflections
Let's get rid of the chrome sphere. (I've
never been one for chrome spheres, but as
homage to those who have gone before us,
we did one.) Copy and paste the surface
from the cone onto the sphere, and let's
move on to something a bit more subtle.
Many things reflect in real life, but most
of them do so with such subtlety that we
aren't even aware of it. Not just the obvious
things, like an inactive CRT, but things like
tabletops, book covers, a Wacom pad, what-
ever. These objects don't reflect very
cleanly; you usually only see reflections in
them when another object is very
close. We don't usually pay any atten-
tion to these subtle reflections, as they
just make up part of the layering that
makes the real world seem real.
a.
Figure 4-38: Notice how prominent the reflections
are for only having a setting of 9%. For a surface
in real life to reflect that well, it would have to be
supremely buffed and polished.
c.
Click on the little T button next to the
Bump field on the Basic tab of the Sur-
face Editor to open the Texture Editor
window. (All Texture Editor windows
are basically the same, whether for
Bump or Color or any other surfacing
channel.)
d.
Change the Layer Type to Procedural
Texture .
Select the GroundPlane surface
and set its Reflection to 9% .
b.
Make sure that Reflection Options
on the Environment tab is set to
Ray Tracing + Spherical Map
and that you have no reflection
map specified. (If you load this
object, or surface, into a scene that
has a pronounced backdrop, it
won't reflect it unless you tell it
you want the backdrop reflected
by changing this to Ray Tracing +
Backdrop.)
Figure 4-39
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