Reflect ONLY objects in Max 3 ?

[Ls3D]

Z raytracer needs to see the objects in order to trace Z rays,..

You could render the view, then reflect that result in the raytrace material (with screen co-ord space),.. but not a true raytrace.

Or perhaps you can create a matte with a basic version of your scene for compositing purposes.

-Shea
www.Ls3D.com

[Tad]

hmm, tried using a reflect map with the raytrace material,
but I think my knowledge of the raytrace material is just too rusty.

I'm really not getting close to the results as with real raytracing,
I tried screen, cylindrical and spherical environment mapping.

cyl and sphere mapping were really f'd up,
couldnt figure out how to get it from a single color blur.

Sigh, been doing lowpoly stuff for far too long

[drathx]

I know for a fact this works in version 4 and I am fairly certain these controls have always been there.
If you right click on the object you want to show up in reflections only, and select Properties, you can adjusts its rendering controls. Uncheck things like 'visible to camera' and cast and recieve shadows and your object will show up only in reflections.
You can see this principle at work on my mustang on my website. Giant white rectangles are being reflected by the car's paint, but do not show up in the views.
Hope this helps.

[Tad]

thanks but that is in fact a max4 only feature.

I got it working though, or at least a workaround,
I just rendered a similar texture to the render object,
and mapped it to the reflect slot in a standard material(shoulda
been the 1st thing i thought of, oh well).

It works, not quite as good as raytracing, because the best
mapping option is spherical environment, and my render only object was a sort of soft edged box.

Anyways, thnx for the help.

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