MIrror ball effect

[djobbins]

Hey,

I'm trying to do a rendering that has a mirror ball in it. Any advice on how to achieve that effect? I'm using Spotlight and RW v2016.

Thanks!

[michaelk]

I have an old mirror ball symbol that sort of works. You can use that as a starting point.

The basic idea is this:

Create a sphere with the sphere tool

Create a point source light at the same coordinate as the sphere

Create a renderworks texture with these basic shader settings:

Reflectivity: Mirror, 80%

Transparency: Image Mask. Make an image mask that is a small circle inside a square.

Bump: Tiles, Square.

Shadows: Cast and Receive.

Then you muck about with the texture size settings, fog settings, lighting settings, etc.

That will get you most of the way there. I've never bothered to figure out how to get rid of the outline of the square. Maybe someone else will have a clever fix for that.

hth

mk

Edited March 21, 2016 by michaelk

[Dave Donley]

Make a spot light with Caustics Only turned on in the Obj Info Shape pane, and Caustics turned on in the RW options (Custom RW or RW style). Aim the spot light at the ball just like in real life. Let me know if that works.

Edited March 22, 2016 by Dave Donley

[PVA - Admin]

Wheeeeeee!

This example uses 100% reflectivity for the mirror texture, I recommend turning it down to 90 or so otherwise you get a too-perfect weird Predator cloaking effect.

[djobbins]

Hey, these are both awesome guys! Any advice on how I could get a fog effect on the reflections?

[PVA - Admin]

I do not think caustics works in conjunction with Lit Fog, that still just uses the base light object's beam.

[michaelk]

I think you're right, Jim. But caustics are pretty cool!

There is no "volumetric" fog in VW. Instead, fog is a parameter of the light object.

When you turn on fog for a light the first time in a drawing it creates a renderworks background. In the resource browser it's just called Background-1.

Editing that resource will change the value of the fog.

It also helps to play around with the distance falloff of the light object.

hth

mk

Edited March 23, 2016 by michaelk

[michaelk]

OK. The solution to the square pattern just became blindingly obvious…

mk

Edited March 24, 2016 by michaelk

[michaelk]

Dave & Jim

You're right about caustics working to get the reflections off the surface of the mirror ball.

But, as Jim suspected, lit fog only works on the initial beam, not on the reflections.

mk

Edited March 24, 2016 by michaelk

[Horst M.]

Hi ... haven't been here for a while

I found in my stock a Mirrorball from 2011.

The only difference that I see to the one michaelk posted is that the texture is

completely based on tile-shaders, so it doesn't need an image for the holes

and the size of the dots stays adjustable by modifying the circle diameter in the transparency channel .

In FQRW it renders quite fast.

With lit fog enabled it takes a while at least on my MacPro from 2006 ;-)

I've worked with Caustics in C4D, found it way too much efforts and render time for just an effect in the whole Event Set and Scene.

So tried to do the MIrrorball effect with the holes in the Mirrors.

Strength and color is adjustable very fast just by editing the light inside the Ball.

works for me.

[img:left]https://techboard.vectorworks.net/ubbthreads.php?ubb=download&Number=14940&filename=Mirrorball_3_FQRW_lifog.jpg[/img]

[img:left]https://techboard.vectorworks.net/ubbthreads.php?ubb=download&Number=14941&filename=Mirrorball_4_FQRW_litfog_closup.jpg[/img]

Edited April 16, 2016 by Horst M.

[djobbins]

Hey, would one of you guys mind re-uploading your mirror ball file? I could have sworn I had it somewhere but now I can't seem to track it down.

[PVA - Admin]

All previous VWX attached below:

Mirrorball_Horstm_v2016.vwx.zip

Mirror_Ball2_.vwx

Mirror_Ball1_.vwx

Mirrorball_Test.vwx

Mirror_Ball_.vwx

[djobbins]

Awesome thanks!