Specular problem

[beenyweenies]

I've encountered this problem before but never bothered to look into it. Now, I really need to figure this out.

I have a ground plane that is reflective, with another object (let's just say a cube) sitting on it, and a light placed behind the object relative to the camera. In the render, the specular highlights on the ground plane do not respect the object. They cover the entire ground surface, even in areas that should be occluded by the object which is blocking the light. If I turn off specular on the light, the result is as expected - the cube casts a shadow on the ground and the reflection of the light source is occluded by the cube.

Is this some odd limitation, or user error?

[Morbid Angel]

hmm this should work just fine - always has. Can you post an example scene?

[beenyweenies]

Sorry forgot to mention that the material on the "cube" object is fully transparent glass.

To be honest this is probably just a case of poor expectations on my part, because the light behind it is really bright - so bright that apparently enough light passes through the glass to eliminate any sign that the glass is refracting some of it away and blocking the light from the surface.

[Morbid Angel]

for glass you need caustics to get correct result. Vray offers a fake way "affect shadow" in refraction for glass to pass through the direct light. But to get correct result that option must be off and caustics used instead.