Proper falloff...

[ravexl]

I seem to have gotten myself all confused and no matter what I test, I can't get this figured how I want it.

I have a matte floor object that I wish to show shadows and reflections only. However, I want the reflections on the floor to fade the further "away" or "up the object" it reflects. (In Max raytrace this is set with an inverse square falloff property within the raytrace settings).

What's the proper falloff type/curve needed in this situation?

[flipside]

I would like to know this too! I can't get it to work either.

flipside

[DaForce]

try using glossies i think that does it.

[ravexl]

Yeah, for the most part it does... but the results seem either too subtle or dramatic... I'll play with that for a little bit more, maybe there's a "magic number".

[natty]

you also need to play with the IOR that helps a lot.

[flipside]

Does IOR have any effect when you have fresnell unchecked on a non transparant material?

[kippu]

ahhhhh

oh man i have been testing this for a very long time and i can never ever get it figured out ......please help us out here

[ravexl]

Thanks for the responses, I played with the suggestions some more...

The glossy reflections work fairly well (with a gradient ramp), despite a significant spike in render times (6-8 subdivs). The bigger problem is, this still messes up the matte object, because even though the environment map (hdri ref) is severely blurred, it still is registering, and the ground plane clearly shows.

How can I eliminate the environment from reflecting all together in the ground matte object? Or how to get it to match the max environment color... I'm using skylight and hdri reflection.

[vlado]

You can put a different environment map in the matte's object material. In this case, it will be reflecting the map in the material environment slot, and not the normal environment.

Best regards,
Vlado

[ravexl]

vlado,

That's what I figured, however I have no idea what to put in there, a darker version of the HDRI, or what. I've tried several things... no avail...

[ravexl]

Well, I tried just about all the applicable environments I could think of... I seem to get best result from a black bitmap environment for the matte ground plane. This does leave sort of a weird "dark halo" but in my scenario the results are acceptable. I also am using a self illuminated light plane and this does get blurred, or, distributed well with the ramped glossies.

Still seems like there'd be an easier way...