Reflectivity of an object question

[Streetwise]

I've got a desk where the reflectivity in the hutch is extremely close to that of my reference photo. However, the carpet reflections in the desk and side storage are a bit over the top IMO. I know that I can take my IOR down until *those* are gone, but at the same time, the hutch will start to loose what I think it pretty accurate. Is there a way to limit the reflectiveness of the carpet? (I suppose I could make it darker...) Or perhaps I could create a version of the wood material with a lower IOR that I could apply to the problem areas? Or perhaps there's another way to achieve what I'm looking for? I've thought about a falloff map on my glossy wood, but I don't have any experience with that to know how that's different than using Fresnel IOR.

Reflect RGB 13,13,13
Highlight glossiness .96 (not sure I even need this)
Refl. glossiness .96
Fresnel Reflections ON
IOR 7.0
Max Depth 5
Subdivs 24

[Neilg]

lower the IOR to something like 2 or 3, and raise the amount of reflection. 1.6 ior is all the reflection at the glancing angles, very little on the front face. by raising the ior you're adding more reflection on the flatter parts and barely adding any to the ones that fall away from the camera.

There's also the fact that those kind of desks would usually have more polish applied on the top surface - which would be a different material.

[Rens]

An IOR of 7 is way too high, set your reflection colour to (almost) white and try a value of 1.4 to 1.8.
1.4 would be a softer coating/lacquer like wax and 1.8 a very hard one. Untreated wood would be around 1.4~1.5.

Then adjust your glossiness value so that it matches your reference. Like Neilg said the top would most likely be more polished and would have a thicker coating. More polished means a smoother surface and a higher glossiness value. Untreated wood will have more bump than lacquered wood.

For more realism use a map to break up the glossiness, for example you could use the wood texture map for that. Make it greyscale first. A good trick is to adjust the output curve so that the darkest part will be black and the brightest part will be white. Then put that map in the Mix Amount slot of a Mix map. Use the Mix map for Glossiness. Adjust the black and white colour swatches until your material looks good.

That's all there's to it. If your reflection is too bright then, then your carpet material or lighting needs changing.

[Svetlozar Draganov]

Is there a way to limit the reflectiveness of the carpet? (I suppose I could make it darker...)

You can make a second darker version of the carpet material and put it into Reflection Override slot of VrayOverrideMtl.
The original carpet material should be placed into the Base Material slot and the VrayOverrideMtl should be applied to the carpet-geometry.

[Streetwise]

You can make a second darker version of the carpet material and put it into Reflection Override slot of VrayOverrideMtl.
The original carpet material should be placed into the Base Material slot and the VrayOverrideMtl should be applied to the carped-geometry.

Wow. Did not know that was possible. It worked fantastic! Thank you very much!

[Streetwise]

There's also the fact that those kind of desks would usually have more polish applied on the top surface - which would be a different material.

I believe that's true, especially after looking at more reference photos. Thanks for all of the input.

[Dave_Wortley]

You may also want to try using a Falloff map in your reflection channel, turning off IOR and using a map to control it so you can manually increase your base reflection whilst still keeping the IOR low.