Infinity mirror only goes about 3 layers...

Hi,

I'm trying to design an infinity mirror with the standaard AutoCAD 2015 program.

With the material library i seem to be able to get a mirror and something that reflects and is transparent.

However, when i render it i don't get the result i hope for. It looks like the reflection gets 'absorbed' and after 3 reflections it's gone.

Anything i can do to make it work? Or do i really need to leard 3DSMAX or something ? .

It doesn't have to go infinite to the extreme, but more than 3-4 'layers' of reflections would be nice.

infinity_mirror.dwg

First, I see the UCS in the render window.... did you simply render the Viewport rather than an external render window? Just curious.

Anyways, technically it's working. You're getting unsatisfactory results because you have nothing else in your environment. Rendering uses realistic lighting calculations, which gives realistic results (so as long as certain settings are properly configured).

Consider these two images below, modeled and rendered in AutoCAD:

The only difference between the two is a plane underneath the guitar body. Notice the quality suddenly increased? Because in reality, a guitar isn't "floating" in space with literally no other objects for light to bounce off of, giving the realistic feel. This is why your rendering is not "reflecting" because there's nothing to reflect, other than the wooden border and small lights.

3ds Max has many more options in simulating an environment with HDR (something I'm not familiar with, because I'm not an expert in 3ds Max). With AutoCAD, you do not get this option so the environment must be modeled to some degree before renders start looking realistic.

Also, be sure to enable Final Gather, and Global Illumination, and play with the Exposure settings to increase the rendering quality.

Hope this helps.

-TZ

*EDIT*

Almost forgot, as for the "infinite lighting" well try intensifying the lights. I'm not an expert at the laws of photometry but I would be lost in trying to mimic what you're trying to do, so can't exactly help you there.

About the rendering, i probably used some wrong render setting while i was trying out stuff so it started rendering withing the modelspace. Usually i get a separate window.

I can't see how some extra objects in (or under) the drawing would help the mirror effect, since the mirroring happens inside the object, and the underlaying plane could easely be the solid with an 'mirror' material added to it.

But i will try out the things you say and perhaps it will improve the result .

It appears to be working, just maybe not strong enough? It looks like you're getting about 3 reflections.

I just watched a video on how to create an infinity mirror, which is pretty cool, but even the real thing only reflects about 6 or 7 times and then it's gone.

I think the problem is with the dots you have on the frame. They don't seem to be big enough, bright enough or reflective enough to keep the effect going. Maybe it would help if you make them a little larger and apply one of the Plastic LED materials. You will have to tweak the material settings to change the color and adjust the reflectivity, self illumination, etc.

You could also place little pointlight's at each dot to help increase the effect.

I also think the environment is a problem. At the very least, try changing the background color to something other than black. Maybe even just a dark grey would help.