Reflection Falloff Question

[IQ-9]

Alright, all 4 of my LW books, the LW docs, and 3 hours online sifting through tutorials and dicsussions could not answer this question.

A plain white half-meter-high object is sitting on a plain white, slightly reflective ground plane [9% reflectivity]. Rendering produces a reflection that is uniform in reflectivity from top to bottom along the Y zxis. Fine. How do I make the reflection gradually fade away as it goes deeper into the ground plane? I want it to be at 9% reflectivity when it is touching the bottom of the object, but 0% at the -Y extent the reflection.

I don't like the results with "reflection blurring". I don't like the results with "soften reflection" filter. I don't like the results with the micro bump map trick from "Essential LightWave 3D 7.5". I need crisp, fading reflections.

This was a simple thing in 3DS MAX.

I've tried every reflectivity gradient: distance from object, Y distance from object, bump, slope, incidence angel, etc.

What the secret?

-russ brooks

[drclare]

You'd think this type of thing would be easier to do. I have two thoughts: One you could try to do it with lighting. Light the floor so that the reflected top area of the object is blown out. I think that is what often creates this effect in real life. Also, what if you tried using fog? Make to object unaffected by fog (white fog) so that the fog won't obscure the object, but it should affect its reflection. Then you can remove the fog in Photoshop or whatever you are using. Since you said the floor is white the fog shouldn't show up outside of the reflected object. Not really sure if this would work, just a thought that came to me. Hope you figure out something that works because it will be a nice effect.

[Akelig]

I don't know if your groundplate needs to reflect any more stuff
if not, I would do the following:

place a blurry ball image on the Y axis of the reflection texture.
As the distance from the object gets higher, the less reflection
there will be.
Maybe this will help?

[Neil_Campbell]

What the secret? Hypersmooth from evasion3d or do it in post

[wacom]

G2 from does it...as well as a million other things...

http://www.worley.com/G2/g2_main.html#top

It'll answer most of your questions/problems...

These are the guys who make sas pro among other things...

[Akelig]

* Let us stop the useless flame starting posts and get back to making good images. PLEASE! *

GoooooD one :)

[wacom]

Oh...and if the object doesn't move you could bake the reflections etc, send them into PhotoShop and blur like you want to...then import the map back into LW...

[wizlon]

I've done it with a weight map. just spray a weight map values in on your ground plane and use this in your reflection channel to fade the reflection.

[jan_muentinga]

add a reference null where your object hits the plane.
in your reflection channel add a gradient going from 9-0
with an distance input (your ref. null)

hope that works

cheers
jan