Where to get reflect from?

[jophus14]

I have been using Vray for some time now and I want to ask all of you some simple questions. When you have a material (glass, metal, plastic, etc.) and there isn't much in the scene or nearby to reflect, what do you do? If it's an exterior scene and there is glass, do you put a bitmap on a plane outside of the scene and let the glass reflect the bitmap? I have a scene with brushed metal but not much to reflect, should I put a map in the environment slot under maps? I have used HDRI in my scenes before, but on some of my work the reflection is quite weak. Any suggestions of ways or tips that you use to accomplish good reflection in scenes. Thanks.

[Ricardo Eloy]

VRayMat has an environment field. Just place a HDRI map there and your material will reflect this map instead of a white/black bg. It works pretty well.

[jophus14]

I'm using a chrome material with a bright blue sky HDRI in my Vray Materials Environment slot, but this is what turns out. No sky is reflected on the geometry, what gives?

[gfa2]

No sky is reflected on the geometry, what gives?

 

From the looks of the reflection it looks like your scene is inside a closed box, so there is no way for an exterior reflection to be seen. Try this same scene with the same setup, but turn off the "room" that your objects are in. Maybe just place a plane or cylinder under them instead.

[Ricardo Eloy]

Also, remember you have 2 environments: 1 for GI and another for reflections/refractions. That's the one.

[maryam]

for the exteriors i suggest to use some buildings invisible to camera,infront of your main building also

u can use a bended plane infront of your building mapped by a landscape image.

good luck

[jophus14]

Thanks for the suggestions. The image that I attached previously was an example of what I needed to do in a render about a week ago. I had to model an elevator interior as well as the threshold. I also modelled a very small portion of the lobby surrounding the elevator enterance. I used a brushed metal material for the threshold, but all it reflected was whatever surrounded the scene, which were just light grey walls. The lite grey walls were out of the cameras view and were used for the purpose of getting good lighting. How could I obtain a reflect on the brushed metal material even though there was nothing to reflect? Plus, the room was enclosed so I couldn't use a HDR image in the environment/reflection slots under Vrays render conrols?

[gfa2]

How could I obtain a reflect on the brushed metal material even though there was nothing to reflect?

 

Others may disagree, but I don't think you will be happy with this rendering unless you actually model the rest of the space so that you have it to reflect in your metal. There are ways of doing fake reflections, by actually mapping reflection maps to your geometry, but not only is this 'old school', but I think unnecessary with the fast raytracers like vray and the like. So basically I guess I'm saying I would model the whole elevator lobby and let that actual environment reflect in the metal.

[jophus14]

Thanks for the quick reply. I ended up doing quite abit of photoshop work and my boss and the client liked the image alot, so that worked for me.