Environment maps

[aflack]

Hi, sorry for all the questions today!

 

I am doing a simple image of a coffee shop and I want it to appear on a white background. I want to apply a Environment Map to the image so the glass around the shop has a bit of texture to it.

 

So I click Rendering and then Environment and then load in the Environment Map Bitmap I want and tick Use map.

 

When I render the view the image is applied as the background image as well as an environment map. Is there a way to just set it to show as reflecting on the glass.

 

Thanks for your patience and help.

[pixelperfectg]

There are a couple of solutions for this. I'm going to assume your using the default scanline renderer. Vray & Brazil have additional solutions.

 

1) Put your environment map in the environment map slot of the glass material. Then leave the actual environment white (no map). If you go this route, the reflections won't be as accurate, but it will render quickly.

 

2) Keep the setup you have now with the environment map and just render your output as a .tga. Use the alpha channel in photoshop as a selection mask to help paint out the background to the color of your choice.

 

You may be able to use the render elements to render out a background pass as well.

 

I normally use step 2 myself. Because the reflections are good and I can just use the alpha channel to copy and paste my 3d object onto a clean photoshop background.

 

Jeff

[tranvietanhtuan]

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[aflack]

Thanks for your reply, you say put the environment map in the environment map slot of my glass material. I have looked through all of the glass settings and can't find an environment map slot anywhere?

 

Thanks

[pixelperfectg]

Again, I can only guess what materials and renderer your using (more info would be very useful). I previously assumed you were using a raytrace material (with scanline) for the glass. The raytrace material has the environment map slot. located under the specular adjustments in the raytrace basic parameters roll out.

 

Thanks for your reply, you say put the environment map in the environment map slot of my glass material. I have looked through all of the glass settings and can't find an environment map slot anywhere?

 

Thanks

[aflack]

Sorry I should have told you.

 

I am using Mental Ray and was using Standard Materials. I changed the material to a RayTrace material and loaded the environment map in when I rendered the view. Well I have attached the image and you can see what is wrong. How do you turn down the reflections as well.

 

Thanks

[Brian Cassil]

The way I've achieved this affect in the past is to create a sphere with inverted normals that encompases your entire scene and map your environment to it. Then in the quad properties of that sphere set it to be invisible to the camera but leave it visible to reflections. Then you can set the reflection of your glass to be whatever you would normally have it at without any custom environment setting at all. It's worked like a charm in the past. Good Luck!

 

Edit... of course, remember to set the sphere to not cast any shadows either and set the environment material to 100% self illumination that you will apply to the sphere .

[pixelperfectg]

Man, I can't believe I forgot the inverted sphere trick! Brian's way would probably be your best bet. Oh, and maybe try the architectural glass too, it works well with MR.

 

Jeff