Fall Off

[glorybound]

can someone explain the fall off map being used in the reflection slot? I have a gray scale, do I place that in the black (top) or white (bottom) slot? Do you control the intensity with the color in the fall off (top/bottom) or the percent in the slot?

[simmsimaging]

Falloff map will create a transition between the front and side colours (by default front is black, sides are white). It will use the method you set in the rollout (in the case you posted it is set to fresnel). This will drop the black colour into the angles facing camera and transition to white as the angle becomes more grazing. You can change that falloff by adjusting the fresnel value, or by tweaking the output curve, or both.

You put your map in whatever slot seems most appropriate for the purpose, but in a fresnel falloff the likely best spot is where you have it - on the sides.

The numerical value in the maps rollout will control how much the falloff map contributes to the reflection colour. If it's less than 100 (in your case 35) then it will blend in the reflect colour set in the normal Vraymaterial swatch.

If you want to control your reflection intensity there are therefore several ways to do it when using falloff maps and bitmaps within them. It's kinda up to you how you do it. My POV is that the simplest way is probably to set the map value back to 100 and control it all within your bitmap and the falloff map. It will be simpler that way, but I don't think there is any one "right" way.

That said - if you are using a custom reflection map it may not even be necessary to use a falloff map at all. Guess it depends on what you are after.

b