Realtime Reflection and Refraction?

[Blitzo]

Someone must know something. There are a few 3rd party plugins available that can do realtime shadows, but none that do refraction. Maybe I should make my own!

[Blitzo]

I'm so amazed at the responses!

[Szos]

probably no replies because there is no way to get realtime effects like those. You can use the Active Shade tool (at least that is what I think it is called) to render out just one small section of the viewport, but it really is a poor substitute for true realtime support.
In all honesty, if you can't get realtime shadows - something that is seemingly much easier to calculate - there is little chance of getting realtime reflections/refractions. I wish that was not the case, because like you mentioned, Direct3D offers up "cheats" that allow many of these effects to happen in realtime.

The only program that I can think of that MIGHT offer up near realtime reflections/refractions might be LightWave cuz I know it has a very fast viewport renderer.

[dnashj33]

It's a 3rd party renderer for Lightwave, called FPrime.
www.worley.com (http://www.worley.com/)
It's amazing, and Max doesn't yet have anything like it. C4D, as of their latest version, R10, has an interactive preview render that's somewhat similar. There is Max plugin called Redviewer that uses your videocard to do quick updates...maybe that's what you are looking for.
http://www.redway3d.com/

It's limited to 3ds Max materials and lights... it's not compatible with Mental Ray

[thatoneguy]

http://www.redway3d.com/ is excatly what you want.

It has refraction and reflections in real time.
http://www.redway3d.com/2.0/assets/gallery/image020Big.jpg

The other option is something like ShaderFX and only using Direct3D Shaders.

[thorsten hartmann]

look here to mental mill from mental images: http://forum.german-mentalray-wiki.info/viewtopic.php?t=708&highlight=metnal+mill , then can you use the new CUDA from Nvidia and your Rendering ist fast, because the CUDA can besides FG+GI. That is the future for the next renderer generation.

mfg
hot chip

[Szos]

Concerning the site above that was posted - http://www.redway3d.com/ - it doesn't look like it is working. When I click the link it asks for a name/password to just go to the home page.

[dnashj33]

Try it again... I noticed that the entire website has undergone a big facelift... probably why you had difficulty.

http://www.redway3d.com/

[kees]

ShaderFX (http://www.lumonix.net) will allow you to create your own reflection and refraction shaders.

And the beauty is that once you have created your shader in shaderFX, it simply uses the build-in directX material of 3dsMax to display the shader so you don't need any 3rd party plugins installed on every machine to see the result.


Simply copy the FX shader you created in ShaderFX to any other machine and they'll be able to see it too.

Kind regards,

-Kees

[Blitzo]

ShaderFX (http://www.lumonix.net (http://www.lumonix.net/)) will allow you to create your own reflection and refraction shaders.


I've tried this one, and I was only able to see refractions with environment maps and not other objects in the scene... Can it infact refract other objects (light planes)? I downloaded the sample refraction shader and I couldn't see other objects.

http://www.redway3d.com/ is excatly what you want.

It has refraction and reflections in real time.
http://www.redway3d.com/2.0/assets/gallery/image020Big.jpg

The other option is something like ShaderFX and only using Direct3D Shaders.

Redway viewer doesn't do refraction, only reflection. Its good for seeing reflective highlights and basic shadowing. Also, that link doesn't work for me for some reason.

[thatoneguy]

The link was an example of a refractive shader refracting other objects in the scene. It's in their gallery.

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