Infinite Floor Look

[phizikl]

Hi,
i have a question regarding floor and background look with V-Ray. I often like to use an "infinite" floor look, where you dont see any walls, or boundaries, no edges, but i want the floor plane to pick up shadows of objects. There is a tutorial from Nick Campbell how to achieve this in Cinema4d, he uses a radial gradient material, but with a compositing tag and checks "Compositing Background". This is enough for the background, but in order for the floor to work as well he also changes material from UV mapping to frontal mapping.

http://vimeo.com/15577118 (at 3minutes you can see it)

Could anyone tell me how to achieve this with V-Ray?

thanks for your help

[jacksc02]

You can use the "vrayfadesphere" atmospheric to achieve this

[dlparisi]

You'll need to set the floor plane as a Matte Object in the Vray Properties dialog and set the Environment Map as the Gradient Map set to "Screen" mapping. Also apply this gradient as the diffuse texture applied to the floor plane. You'll also need to use the environment overrides if you want to use VraySky. Max2009 scene attached.

[phizikl]

thanks chris,
could you elaborate alittle bit on that?
i have added s pheregizmo, added vraysphere fade, picked the gizmo,
but nothing really changes? and the floor of course hasnt changed either...

any help?

[jacksc02]

Or this is how you can do it with the fadesphere.

In my example I have made the floor blue to make it obvious what you need to change.
The fadesphere doesnt work that well with camera exposure but I usually comp in backgrounds so it works well for me

[phizikl]

wow, 2 methods
great
gonna try it right now
thanks alot

[dlparisi]

One advantage of Chris' method is that the hotspot is defined by the gizmo rather than screenmapped like in my version and the video - it looks somewhat more natural.

[phizikl]

dave,
of course matte object with shadows enabled, that was the trick- too bad this method does not allow any light to be visible on the plane
(thats the case with my test scene right now, where i use illuminated spheres with a light inside (no GI method) to fake a glowing effect, that of course doesnt work
but this method of course is great and should work for most cases!
tHANKS!

trying spheregizmo now

[dlparisi]

dave,
of course matte object with shadows enabled, that was the trick

Sorry, forgot to mentione the "shadow" checkbox.

too bad this method does not allow any light to be visible on the plane

Chris' method should allow for lighting on the plane although I'm not sure how well it will blend into the background at that point.

[phizikl]

yes, the matte object with shadow is great(er) for everything where no light sources or reflections are needed
but of course, as soon as i want light, or reflections on the ground, this does not work
(too bad there is no reflection or refraction checkbox)

the gizmosphere method is great for that,
although i am having trouble get the "ultimate" blend in the background
i have to have falloff at 1 to have best falloff, but then the "fog" already affects the objects....

continuing to test..

[phizikl]

it is possible with vray sphere gizmo and the floor, but one has to make a blend material with vray light to get a minimum brightness on the floor, but unfortunately that also reduces the shadows

so right now possible is:
- only shadow on floor, perfect blend (matte object and shadow) - no reflections or light
- reflections and light on floor, but minimal shadow if perfect blend is desired (sphere gizmo)
- reflections and light and shadows on floor, but not perfect blend (sphere gizmo)