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hi,
trying to get my head around a task, maybe there's someone, that has an idea for this one:

what you see is a metal sphere that is in a hole, cut into a flat plane. i made this to demonstrate by faking, not too good i admit, but i hope the task gets clearer with it.
how can i achieve this effect, with an mxm?
so, what is needed to be achieved is: a flat plane which i can assign this mxm to, and i will receive this 3d-ish holographic-ish effect, as if one looked right onto a spherical surface, while looking at his flat plane.

simple radial gradiants for reflection don't do it, as you might have guessed. looks flat, and has no depth feel to it.

is there any help for this one?

A very precise bump might do it? Displacement would be better, but you said you want it flat. But why do you want it to remain flat? Looks like a very simple model to make.

yes, the geometry needs to stay flat. the mxm needs to create the optical illusion of depth there. so displacement would be out...
tried out some bump approaches... but no... not even close...

if i could find knowledge/material about how they make such holographic-ish material in real life, that would help.

mashium123 wrote:holographic-ish

I see a chrome ball inside a hole...

yes... that's what it should should like - but only without a hole and chromeball given.
(i thought showing a 'model' of this idea could make it easier for me to explain what the mxm should 'do')...

just a flat surface, that is shaded with an mxm. similar to a hologram or so... you got an idea, how to achieve this?

I think you can do it with an mxm using a ZDepth map as displacement and applying it to a flat surface , but I'm not sure if that's exactly what you want.
Do you want to see the material at another angles still flat ? Are you thinking in a kind of eyefish material but on a flat surface? no relief at all? or Do you just need the mxm to quickly assign it to flat surfaces?

sorry, don't really catch what you're exactly looking for

iker,

displacement is not what i'm looking for.
yes, i understand, that i have not been able to explain myself correctly.

[quote='iker']...Do you want to see the material at another angles still flat ? Are you thinking in a kind of eyefish material but on a flat surface?...[/quote]
yes, this is what im looking for. at least kind of. it needs to behave similar to the render, that i posted.
it (the 'flat' sphere) should reflect the environment, just like that cheat-sphere in the hole does in the render above.
and also depth-wise it should look as if that sphere was in a cut out hole, so that the closest geometry to the cam still would be the flat area around "that sphere-in-a-hole".

if i could only post a reference... i will try to find.. but that's not that easy...

still, thanks a lot for trying to help.

A normal map could work pretty well. But you need to create it using a real model. Do you use C4D? I'm not sure if it has the option to render out a normal map from a model.

yes, it's c4d - and there's the multipass option, that writes a normal map.
i tried your suggestion (still am trying), but it looks more strange than convincing i need to say...
i'l go on trying your normal-suggestion way.

to be realistic (timewise - in terms of getting paid) i'll need head towards a faked modelled solution... but nevertheless the problem is hard to let go...

btw: it's for a project, that demands to be done in 1.7.1 (it's not me, that is demanding this ) so after such a long time working with the upgrade i've been back in 1.7.1 since a few days... and... man... forget all those fancy new things... the new material system alone is... what can i say... this upgrade... thank you for the music, nl