visible reflections/specularity?

[Ravager]

i was wondering how to make it so that something can be completely invisible, yet you can see reflections and/or specularity on it clearly.... and i have no clue how to do it, can anyone help?

[John Bigboote]

GOOD question.

 

I hate to say it...but this is one of M*y*'s strengths. I would speculate that you could 'possibly' accomplish this... by- rendering to .exr file format and then playing with these values in an A:M Composite scenario...(is this still a feature?) However, I fear that by diminishing the transparency of your model you will also diminish the transparency of the reflections and specularity...? Maybe Yves can elaborate.

 

My 'other' suggestion would be...if you use a compositing app like AE (Adobe After Effects) those nuances could be 'contained' and manipulated separately. THIS way, all the OTHER features of AE would be available to you to manipulate with. (IE: blurs, levels, chokers, keys, color correctors... you name it!)

 

I'll follow this thread. Good question!

[robcat2075]

Specular is fairly easy. set the "surface" to 100% transparent and turn specular size and intensity to something other than 0%. I just tried it and it works, however in V13 I found that only multipass rendering would make specs show up in this method.

 

A quick test with that same strategy for reflections yields results not quite like what i expect. reflections seemed un naturally bright. More investigation woudl be required.

[Ravager]

Specular is fairly easy. set the "surface" to 100% transparent and turn specular size and intensity to something other than 0%. I just tried it and it works, however in V13 I found that only multipass rendering would make specs show up in this method.

 

A quick test with that same strategy for reflections yields results not quite like what i expect. reflections seemed un naturally bright. More investigation woudl be required.

 

 

strange, it doesn't work for me....

[heyvern]

Works for me. 100% transparent with specular set. I see like a ghosted image... like Wonder Woman's invisible jet.

 

reflection is odd though. Kind of bright.

 

-vern

[heyvern]

I got it!

 

The reason it looks "bright" with transparency is because the object is... well... invisible. If it reflects it will appear "brighter" if the reflection is bright. It depends on what is in the environment to reflect. I set the reflection to 5% and got a very cool effect. the ground plane was reflecting and fading off so the object looks invisible but is reflecting "a little bit".

 

the issue is what would a reflective "invisible" object really look like anyway? If it reflects it isn't invisbile. What about refraction?

 

 

Experimentation required yes.

 

-vern

[heyvern]

This is half of a terminator eyeball. It's what I had open at the time. The specular is way too bright and the reflection isn't much.

 

 

 

-vern

[Ravager]

i dont understand.... i make it 100% transparent, 25% spec size, and 100% spec intensity.... and no matter how i render it i still cannot see the spec on the sphere.

[robcat2075]

you have multipass on?

 

did you do the spec settings on a material or the whole object?

[heyvern]

What kind of shape is it?

 

I have found that in one of my tests the specular was too small to show very well depending on the angle of the object and the surfaces. A 25 specular size is fairly small. Just a guess.

 

In my example the specular size is HUGE... like 75... a bit much as I said.

 

-vern

[Ravager]

it is just a normal sphere, here is what it looks like:

[NancyGormezano]

There is a difference between how on screen renders look (render lock - ver15b) and how a final render looks. 100% transparent makes the object disappear in the final render to file (but not onscreen). I believe it also happens if you render multipass off.

 

My guess is that you will have to make your object 99% transparent - rather than 100%. You can use whatever values you'd like for reflectivity & specularity.

 

Too bad. The onscreen render looks much better

[heyvern]

On the topic of "render lock"....

 

There is no way to get that type of render when rendering to a file? What is "render lock"? What type of... render is it that makes it different?

 

-vern

[robcat2075]

report the non-conformity of the renders as an A:M report