Exterior Glass and reflections: What works for you

[jophus14]

How do people get that nice glossy look on the window pane? Everytime I have my window pane reflect the sky, all it reflects is the color of the sky and I never get that reflective look. I loss it. Any help?

[Repenseks]

Hi jophus14,
window reflect what it can see. Depending of what method you are using, if HDRI you can move around in the material slot rotatr horisontally or even vertically, allowing window glass to see deferent scenery

Regards
Srdjan

[jophus14]

When I use a HDR image, it seems to stretch along the glass. It gets real distorted. I have a few HDR images that have the sun in them, but how can I get the image to fit along the window panes and not look so stretched out? Thanks for the reply.

If I use a sky jpeg in my Skydome, will the glass reflect the skydome or the HDRI in the environment/Reflection slot? I tried bumping up the multiplier in the Reflection slot to 10.0 and the reflection is still real weak. Can you guys help me out?

[Repenseks]

Hello jophus14,

if you go to the envirenoment secod slot, the bottom one, you can assign Vray HDRI map over there, open material, drag and chose instant, there you can pick up hdri file, very important is to choose right setup. My max is rendering right now, so I can not check what is called, I think you must use second from the bottom, you will see in material viewport if it is distorted, and that will cause bad reflection on the windows. I like this way i am using, and to add you have full control. Try this if you haven't by now, and let me now if you don't succseeded. It will be helpful if you can post some renderings, so we can see what is bugging you

Regards
Srdjan

[jophus14]

Here is what I have so far. How can I get the glimmer of the sunny on my window? I would like a streak of white or yellowish-white to represent the sunny on the windows reflection. Can I put a Vray light in the sky in the shape of a sphere and only include the window panes? I tried it before but it didn't seem to work for me, but maybe I was doing something wrong. I see the streak of sunlight on exterior renders quite a bit. Thanks for your help so far.

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[nvanherpt]

given my preference for stills, photoshop works for me reflection-wise. can't beat a good masked layer group.

[Repenseks]

Hello there,

Firstly I can not see any clouds in the sky, talking about yoi background, so you can not expect to see them in the window reflections too. In order to see Vray light in the reflection, you must think that window glass is acting similar to a mirror, you incomming angle is axactly the same as outgoing angle, so do a little calculations and experiments if you want to see reflections of the sun in the windows. try to download some better hdri images and experiment with them. So far i had the best reflections, since i started using hdri.
As nvanherpt advised, that is also very good idea, to supperimpose it afterwords using photoshop, but for that you have to render twice, first normally, then with attention to window glass only, because you need nice selection inside photoshop. Lots of ways to do the thing, best way is to using those advices as a guydeline, and spend some time experimenting.

Good luck,

Regards
Srdjan

[jophus14]

Here's an update of the image. This is just for fun. Its a reflection exercise so the model itself it horrible. What ways can I improve the window reflection or the window panes themself?

[Repenseks]

Hello there,

looks like your reflectivity is set to pure white, maybe you can lessen reflectivity, right now acts as a perfect mirror. You can also take some highrise building photos and analize to see what is reflection made of in real life, than try to replicate in 3D

Regards
Srdjan

[OrionD]

or try adding falloff in reflection... makes it more realistic...

[m_hinks]

This thread is interesting to me as Ive just joined an Arch viz company using Vray for the first time, and they rely heavily on PS to do a lot of post work, and make their glass totally in PS, I imagine as nvanherpt said. I come from a Brazil background, and the rendered image was near enough what the client got! Now I need to learn to composite more.

Id been keen to see a screen grab or other information from peeps showing how they use PS and rendered elements to make their Arch stills? Of course different peeps have their own special ways, but if we air them, theres a good chance we'll find out new/wuicker/better ways to do the same thing!

Look forward to hearing back.