rayswitcher advice

[Matt McDonald]

Hello

 

I'm running into a little trouble on an interior project where I have glass at the corner of a building.

 

I am trying to use the environment ray switcher which comes with max to allow me to use my sky for illumination but have a nice, clean black background so I can use the background plate of my choice. Please note: in the images I have attached I am using an mrSky because I am at home using an older copy of max, my actual project I am using an HDRI coupled with userIBL.

 

mrSky.jpg shows a simple scene without the ray switcher employed.

 

rayswitcher.jpg shows the ray switcher in place.

 

rayswitcher2.jpg shows the previous image with a replacement background.

 

As you can see from the two rayswitcher images the glass reflects the background image as it should based on the straight functionality of the ray switcher. I would prefer that the mrSky (or in my actual project, the HDRI image) not be visible in the glass reflections.

 

If that means means that my tea pot will not reflect the sky, so be it. I do however, what to be able to use the HDRI for illumination.

 

Any suggestions?

 

Cheers

Matt

[Tommy L]

Im not a MR user, so take this with a pinch of salt.

Firstly, if youre not using HDRI for reflections, then youre missing out on what HDRI does well. You can fake an HDRI lighting setup, you cant fake HDRI reflections...

Secondly, cant you pretty much ignore your viewport and rendered backgrounds and run a seperate pass with an alpha to isolate your scene for compositing in post?

[Justin Hunt]

something like this?

 

The first uses the rayswitcher and the second uses the environment rayswitcher

 

I like the first as it gives you a few more options

 

jhv

Edited June 20, 2013 by Justin Hunt

[Matt McDonald]

Yes! That looks about right. I can't tell from the screen grab which ray switcher you are using. Tell me, tell me.

 

Thanks Justin!

[Justin Hunt]

updated my first post, the first uses the "colour override/rayswitcher" with the mrsky in the eye rays and a brick texture in the refraction slot. The second just uses the "Environment/backround switcher" with a concrete texture for the backround. Both a light with a mrsun and sky system. Just be sure to turn off"procress Backround and environment maps" in the exposure control

 

JHV