Water Planes and Relections Question

[Pangaea]

Hi folks, sorry if this has been asked before, I see alot of images with water planes, I had assumed this was done by exporting mesh and importing into another package that could do create a water plane, however just out of curiosity am i missing an option somewhere that will do it within m3d?
Also, I cant seem to see options for reflections (other then spec..etc) .. yet i see alot of images using real reflections, such as chrome, etc.. like my question about water planes I assumed this was done via 3rd party software.. but are reflections possible in m3d itself?


regards
pan

[DarkBeam]

If you use lightmaps and images instead of the gradients the realism will be impressive. Lenord is the master of this style

[taurus]

reflects can be found in postprocess dialog.

in principle waterplanes might be done with the difs > heightmapIFS in mb3d (don't ask me how). but it's more likely, that the water-plane images you saw, were made in mandelbulber http://www.fractalforums.com/index.php?action=gallery;cat=51. am i right?

[Pangaea]

Hi folks, thanks for the replies..
Ah, darn I always forget there's that post process panel.. there's the reflection settings, also low and behold theres the dof settings too ive been wondering about

anyway.. still having some trouble getting to grips with the reflections, like i understand about spec and all that, and I assume by light maps you mean like a reflection map (in regular 3d graphics terminology).. however, its real reflections im after,... all I can seem to achieve thus far even within the newly remembered post process panel is a high gloss, somewhat giving the the impression of refection.. I know by combining lightmap, positional lights, spec settings I can get something nice, but I was hoping for something like this:
http://www.fractalforums.com/index.php?action=gallery;sa=view;id=10110

I saw a bunch of other pics with real reflections too, but cant seem to find them again in the bewildering number of amazing images in the gallery... there was another one with just chrome balls I was hoping to show you but cant seem to find it. anyway, not sure exactly what Im doing wrong, or in fact if its even possible with m3d.. btw you mentioned mandlebulber.. I did see that mentioned about, but thought it was an earlier version of m3d or something (sorry new to 3d frac world)... anyway.. pitty about the water planes.. i might give bulber a try.. heh, just when im getting reasonably comfortable with m3d

regards
pan

ps.. ah found a better example of what im talking about:  http://www.fractalforums.com/index.php?action=gallery;sa=view;id=7697

[Jesse]

I posted sample parameters for a water effect here (in my reply):
http://www.fractalforums.com/index.php?action=gallery;sa=view;id=9968
 

[Sockratease]

... ah found a better example of what im talking about:  http://www.fractalforums.com/index.php?action=gallery;sa=view;id=7697

A lot of reflection quality is diirectly related to the surface doing the reflecting.

You linked to reflecting spheres.  Notice how the non-spherical surfaces are not reflecting with the same quality?  That's the nature of the beast.

Here:



Again, only the spherical surfaces reflect the image background in that example  (Yes, it's an old example done in an old version of MB3D - but it fits, and I haven't shoved any images of Lissa down people's throats for a while, so it's about time for just one!).

Also notice that the surfaces with "texture" (the big half spheres containing the little ones) do not reflect properly.  Their surface is bumpy and the rays are bouncing all over, never allowing the reflection to come into focus.

Settings to adjust include roughness and 2nd refletion (in the lighting "Ambient" panel, as well as the "On Normals" checkbox if using a light map.

Hope that helps...

[Pangaea]

thanks jesse for the suggestion and info... haven't worked out out to import/export formulas yet, but I guess now is as good time as ever.


yes sockratease I had considered that before, reflections are going to struggle with most fractals.. all that endlessly iterated surface detail even if it looks smooth from a distance, tho I had worked on a few locations that had spheres and clean geometry, I thought at the time "wow that surface would be great with a bit of chrome or whatever", but couldn't quite work it out. To be honest even if I knew how to get real reflections its not something I would use that often.

Anyway ill try a few things out..

I`ll let you guys know how I get on

regards