3dsMax to Anim8or - reflections and environment mapping

A way to have reflections without using an object mask and add it in post production is to set the reflecting surface transparent and put a reflection image carefully adjusted behind. Antialiasing will not be destroyed by an objectmask. A second way is to mirror the whole scene behind the reflecting surface. But take care of mirrowed lights or shadows. A Third way is to add the reflection image with help of an object mask in post production. Antialiasing will be destroyed.

This image i created following an 3dsMax HDRI tutorial. The wood texture comes from a photo of my kitchen table, the ball textures where tutorial included. As an environment i simply took a photo of my room. It is rendered with max's default scanline renderer. My aim was to translate this scene to Anim8or.

At first i made a top view render do determine the exact position of the balls and the ofset of the textures.

This image is a composition of the top view render and a wireframe screenshot. Its made to contain all needed information in order to have a valid background image in Anim8or. The red line marks the sun's direction. In the Anim8or scene, the sun's target is placed at the end of that line. The values for X,Y and Z are taken ofer directly from 3dsMax.

Instead of using a background image i used a simple box object as reference for adjusting the balls positions and the wood texture. The advantage of this method is to scale and move it in a used way. The reference object has been deleted after positioning.

As an environment for my scene i took a fast stitched cubic panorama from my kitchen, made of 6 images. Therefore i used the program "ReSpam Beta1" from Sven Schumacher. This longitude/latitude image can be applyed directly to a sphere.

To make the environment texture for the balls, set a second camera exactly at the position of a ball. Balls must be >100 units in diameter, 50 units are the cameras near clip plane. Set its orientation to 0/0/0, its field of view to 90°. Render a preview with 256*256 pixels. Name and save this view as f.e. black_front.bmp. Do the same with camera.y= -180. This is the back view. Render each direction this way (front 0/0/0, back 0/-180/0, left 0/90/0, right 0/-90/0, up 90/0/180, down -90/0/180). Do this for each ball. Open all images in your usual image editor and flip all up/down images verticaly, all right/left/front/back images horizontaly. Increase the images contrast, darken them little, decrease color saturation, ad some gaussian blur if u want. This step fakes the HDRI effect. Now you have the views how the balls "see" the scene. Load these images to the environment texture chanel of the balls material. Play aroud with the wight parameters to have a realistic amount of reflection depending what kind of material the balls are. For plastic i set it to 55. Do this step 2 times and u get a ray-depth value of 2, means u can see the reflection inside the reflection.

Now, in order to make a reflection image, invert the cameras y-position but dont move the target position. Render this camera view, save it, mirror it vertical. The wood surface material is two sided. The backside (or downside) is set to transparent.

The environment sphere surrounds the entire scene. There are some ambient lights and 1 infinite light, a light target and a camera target. The camera target should have a y-value of 0 or the same hight as the reflecting surface.

This shows the scene inside of its environment. The only purpose of the environment is to have something to be reflected. The environment itself does not apear in the final render. The reflection image has been added to a simple square, this square has the camera as its parent and faces the camera. In y(world), its below the wood surface. So its easy to adjust to the camera view by changing ist y-position(parent = camera)-value.

This image shows the transparent chanel of the wood surface. It simulates a partly wet surface. The amount of transparency is set by black/white values. With the reflection image behind, you can adjust the surface reflection this way. You can do this because any materials diffuse emitted rays and reflected rays add to max 100% (absorbtion excluded).

The final render with less reflection, medium spectacularity to simulat a shiny surface and high bump.

The final render with a lot of partialy reflection, more spectacularity and negative bump. This may simulate a partly wet surface or a abrasive damaged shiny transparent paint.

The final render with a lot of global reflection, medium spectacularity and quite bumpless. The reflection texture has been replaced by a gaussian blur copy. Its made to simulate a polished surface.