END OF AN ERA, FRACTALFORUMS.COM IS CONTINUED ON FRACTALFORUMS.ORG

We know that you can use a background image, and that if you create a mirrored surface with full black and reflections all the way + spec 1 or more... Luca has a nice tutorial about it http://lucagn.deviantart.com/art/100percent-mirroring-setting-in-MB3D-285194378

I posted a question to him there that actually made me think about this idea.. I noticed that the sphere is reflecting the background image on the front of the sphere.. this was unexpected for me, coming from a 3d background. But it reminded me of how I used to fake reflections in a mirrored shape by placing a plane behind the camera and mapping the image I wanted to see in the reflections on to it.

Would this be something that could be done by having a second "background" image selector that actually made a "foreground" image which was behind the cameras field of view. This could also be a way to some extent "project" textures onto the geometry in the scene, naturally it would warp and bend around the object, but that wouldn't be so crucial in all situations.

What do you think?

EDIT: For my first bit Luca pointed out to me that it was background in "sphere mode" which, I can imagine that without some Mercator mapping or something will leave a big seam that can possibly show up in your render. So the spherical mapping mode doesn't negate the idea I am talking about.

Yep, you have to use/make a spherical map, but with only 2 images you got certainly gaps.  You would make a world-cube out of 6 images then.

The problem is that i cannot store much more informaltion about filenames in the light parameters, i have to make new formats and extend many parts of the program, so this will take really time.  Also for a more general formula handling... but i don't think that i include a world-box with 6 images specified... there are probably helper tools to construct spherical maps somehow.