orthographic env reflections/highlights?

[kimgar]

i need to render orthographic views (not camera) and get wrong (or right, depending on how you see it) environment reflections and highlights. i think i understand why this is happening, but does anyone know a way to render orthographic environment reflections more like perspective ones?

here's an example:

[joconnell]

Bit of a cheat but maybe make a really far away Camera with a tiny fov? Thinking about it I wonder would you actually get a similar result due to all of the reflection rays converging on very small area of the reflection environment?

[kimgar]

it's in a scripted pipeline, so i really wanted to avoid using cameras (mostly because of time issues and my messed up FOV calculations...)
...and yeah, that thought hit me too, if i went with the far away camera hack, wouldn't the results just end up similar?

[joconnell]

Maybe instead on an environment which is infinitely far use a sphere that's a lot closer to the object? You might at least get the reflection rays hitting more pixels of the reflection map - might still look odd though?

[kimgar]

yeah, i did try that somwhere along the line, it got better (if i remember correctly), but caused another problem since i am actually using two reflection environments; one regular and one mapped to a material environment slot. if there was a way to exclude/include the dome from reflection on a material basis i would be good to go, but as far as i've understood this cannot be done yet. if i'm not mistaken, its being discussed here : http://www.chaosgroup.com/forums/vbu...de-Lists/page2

...can of worms as vlado correctly describes it

[joconnell]

Yeah it seems as the environment override is possibly through local material environments, but not object. Might be something where you'd have to hide / unhide in your scripted pipeline instead :/

[kimgar]

actually there was a post today regarding sending parameters at rendertime, pretty cool, but i don't think i can use this approach since it's all rendered in one go.

hmhm, i think the most viable solution is to skip the material environment and just settle for the single environment in a dome, thanks for your thoughts connell it's good to know i'm still online with these things

[joconnell]

Those crazy spherical harmonics that the maya people talk about sound like they could be useful for this - either that or some kind of 2d relighting to allow you to add on reflections in 2d afterwards?

[kimgar]

aah, yes, spherical harmonics what a wonderful name, i remember that crazy talk

unfortunately, any post work is also out of the equation regarding this, all renders have to be used as they are. tricky little bugger.

[joconnell]

Back to the scanline

[kimgar]

oh yeah, those were the times my friend

[joconnell]

Matthias malmer in Syndicate is probably still using it with his amazingly quick in house GI fake

[vlado]

Back to the scanline

Scanline produces the exact same effect...

Best regards,
Vlado

[joconnell]

All rays are created equal