Reflection mapping

[busseynova]

Morning all,

 

I am hoping someone can help me, it seems like this should be easy, but I can't for the life of me get it to work.

 

I am trying to create some spherical swatches of various materials. One is a chrome surface and to create a reflection to show the shiny surface I'm using a reflection map to try and simulate a reflected background but it doesn't seem to be working, the rendered sample just comes up black, even though the swatch in the materials editor shows up correctly.

 

Before this I tried using a surface backdrop but couldn't get the mapping right. One version used a cylinder which didn't look right in the reflections. I also tried a sphere, but couldn't get it to map correctly!

 

The file was too big to upload here, although not massive. Could anyone please have a look if they have the time to spare. Any help is hugely appreciated!

 

http://www.sendspace.com/file/z0c79m

[Cad64]

If you're going to post files like this, that rely on image maps in order to work, you need to include the images.

Use ETRANSMIT to zip up your files and then post the zip file.

 

And maybe you could pick a different file hosting site? I got several pop ups from that site, and one of them wouldn't let me go. I had to open my task manager to close down the window. I'm just glad my spyware protection is up to date.

 

But to answer your question, in order for reflective materials to work, they need something to reflect. Place some objects around the sphere and render again. You should see the objects reflection on the sphere.

[busseynova]

Oh yes, forgot about the reference files, I think I thought they might have embedded. But your last comment answers my question, I ended up doing it that way in the end; Just it wasn't easy to get a background that virtually surrounded the object without wierd things happening to the mapping. I guess image mapping is just time consuming sometimes. Thanks for your help, I'll try and use a different hosting site next time.