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Hi there!

Is it possible to have a reflective surface on a dielectic...or am I saying this right? I am trying to get a surface reflection off water but need to also show an object below the surface. So far my only solution is compositing. I'm hoping someone else may have a better answer. I'm on Lightwave 7.5.
Thanks much.

Cheers, Ron

Hm, not sure if that's possible.. but perhaps you can use the Plastic shader with SSS enabled and then the liquid mesh is a solid volume instead of just a plane. The bad part about that is it takes alot of time to calculate and it generates tremendous amounts of noise

Hopefully someone else has a better suggestion than this..

/ Max

Hi RonB,

Reflection(specular) on dielectric surfaces internally works with fresnel. You cannot define specular reflection to a uniform value at all angles. In other hand, fresnel depends on view angle. With narrow angles, you will see reflections stronger as in real life. Also it's necessary to have environmental stuff to see the reflections of them. Otherwise, you'll see the reflection of emptiness and you won't be able to notice if it's reflecting or not. I hope this helps...
***see here: http://physics.nad.ru/Physics/English/rays_txt.htm
***and here http://escience.anu.edu.au/lecture/cg/G ... on.en.html

Best regards,
Tom

Maximus3D and Tom,

Thanks for your comments.

I've tried setting up a reflective plane for the reflection image but no matter what the angle it doesn't work with the dielectic...it does, however, work like a charm with a plastic surface. Looks like it's going to be a post render composite thing...you will see what I mean when I post the image.

Cheers, Ron