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Making a mirror

jukingeojukingeo Posts: 711
in New Users

Hello all,

I want to expand on making photos that show both the front and backside of an outfit, so I am going to need a mirror and a pretty big one too...  Wall sized in fact.  I was looking at some of the dance studio packs, but really I have enough indoor spaces that will do.  I just need to know how to change one of the walls into a mirror, or perhaps make up a primitive plane as a wall sized mirror.  I just need to know how does one go about creating a mirrored surface in Daz?

Thank you

Comments

  • PsyckosamaPsyckosama Posts: 495
    edited March 2019

    It's dangerous to go alone, take this.

     

    https://www.sharecg.com/v/81125/browse/21/DAZ-Studio/Iray-Mirror-Shader

     

    :)

    Post edited by Psyckosama on
  • L'AdairL'Adair Posts: 9,479

    As we've been talking Iray all along, I'm going to assume you're still using Iray. DS ships with some default Iray shaders, including several metal shaders that will work for a mirror.

    I'd recommend using a plane primitive, about 2 M in size, with one poly, Primary Axis depends on where you want the mirror. For the wall on your right, as you look at the scene, use X-Negative; for the left, use X-Positive.

    1. Select the plane in the scene and move it into position.
    2. Go into the Surfaces->Editor and select the Plane.
      • Beginning with the 4.11 beta, (I believe,) the primitive will be created with shaders for the selected render engine, but if you're still using the 4.10 release version, you'll need to apply the Iray Uber Base shader first. Either way:
    3. With the plane selected in both the Scene and Surfaces->Editor, click on the tab for Surfaces Presets.
    4. If you need to apply the Iray Uber Base, In the right column filter field:
      • Type in Uber and then select All or Default in the left column. The first of many icons to display on the right should be the Iray Uber Base Icon 
      • Double-click to apply.
      • Delete Uber from the filter field.
    5. Drill-down from Default to Shaders to Iray to Metal and select Metal.
      • If you have a lot of purchased shaders, you can try filtering by Mirror and see if one of those sets has a specific mirror shader.
      • If not, try applying one of the shiny, reflective metal shaders to the plane.
        • Here are the white shiny metal shaders that ship with Daz Studio: Metal - Aluminum - Polished, Metal - Cobalt, Metal - Iron, Metal - Nickel, Metal - Platinum, Metal - Silver, and Metal - Titanium.
        • I recomment starting with Metal - Silver.

    To get a good reflection, move the set and mirror around your figure and adjust the lighting. You may need to do this several times before you determine the best camera and lighting angles to use. Once you do, I recommend removing the figure from the scene and saving as a starting point for the photos with front and backside. If you're going to be doing a lot of these, you might also want to make the scene Read-Only so you won't accidently save over it. You set the Read-Only flag in Explorer, (Windows, no clue how to do this with a Mac,) not in Daz Studio.

  • jukingeojukingeo Posts: 711
    L'Adair said:

    As we've been talking Iray all along, I'm going to assume you're still using Iray. DS ships with some default Iray shaders, including several metal shaders that will work for a mirror.

    I'd recommend using a plane primitive, about 2 M in size, with one poly, Primary Axis depends on where you want the mirror. For the wall on your right, as you look at the scene, use X-Negative; for the left, use X-Positive.

    1. Select the plane in the scene and move it into position.
    2. Go into the Surfaces->Editor and select the Plane.
      • Beginning with the 4.11 beta, (I believe,) the primitive will be created with shaders for the selected render engine, but if you're still using the 4.10 release version, you'll need to apply the Iray Uber Base shader first. Either way:
    3. With the plane selected in both the Scene and Surfaces->Editor, click on the tab for Surfaces Presets.
    4. If you need to apply the Iray Uber Base, In the right column filter field:
      • Type in Uber and then select All or Default in the left column. The first of many icons to display on the right should be the Iray Uber Base Icon 
      • Double-click to apply.
      • Delete Uber from the filter field.
    5. Drill-down from Default to Shaders to Iray to Metal and select Metal.
      • If you have a lot of purchased shaders, you can try filtering by Mirror and see if one of those sets has a specific mirror shader.
      • If not, try applying one of the shiny, reflective metal shaders to the plane.
        • Here are the white shiny metal shaders that ship with Daz Studio: Metal - Aluminum - Polished, Metal - Cobalt, Metal - Iron, Metal - Nickel, Metal - Platinum, Metal - Silver, and Metal - Titanium.
        • I recomment starting with Metal - Silver.

    To get a good reflection, move the set and mirror around your figure and adjust the lighting. You may need to do this several times before you determine the best camera and lighting angles to use. Once you do, I recommend removing the figure from the scene and saving as a starting point for the photos with front and backside. If you're going to be doing a lot of these, you might also want to make the scene Read-Only so you won't accidently save over it. You set the Read-Only flag in Explorer, (Windows, no clue how to do this with a Mac,) not in Daz Studio.

     

    L'Adair said:

    As we've been talking Iray all along, I'm going to assume you're still using Iray. DS ships with some default Iray shaders, including several metal shaders that will work for a mirror.

    I'd recommend using a plane primitive, about 2 M in size, with one poly, Primary Axis depends on where you want the mirror. For the wall on your right, as you look at the scene, use X-Negative; for the left, use X-Positive.

    1. Select the plane in the scene and move it into position.
    2. Go into the Surfaces->Editor and select the Plane.
      • Beginning with the 4.11 beta, (I believe,) the primitive will be created with shaders for the selected render engine, but if you're still using the 4.10 release version, you'll need to apply the Iray Uber Base shader first. Either way:
    3. With the plane selected in both the Scene and Surfaces->Editor, click on the tab for Surfaces Presets.
    4. If you need to apply the Iray Uber Base, In the right column filter field:
      • Type in Uber and then select All or Default in the left column. The first of many icons to display on the right should be the Iray Uber Base Icon 
      • Double-click to apply.
      • Delete Uber from the filter field.
    5. Drill-down from Default to Shaders to Iray to Metal and select Metal.
      • If you have a lot of purchased shaders, you can try filtering by Mirror and see if one of those sets has a specific mirror shader.
      • If not, try applying one of the shiny, reflective metal shaders to the plane.
        • Here are the white shiny metal shaders that ship with Daz Studio: Metal - Aluminum - Polished, Metal - Cobalt, Metal - Iron, Metal - Nickel, Metal - Platinum, Metal - Silver, and Metal - Titanium.
        • I recomment starting with Metal - Silver.

    To get a good reflection, move the set and mirror around your figure and adjust the lighting. You may need to do this several times before you determine the best camera and lighting angles to use. Once you do, I recommend removing the figure from the scene and saving as a starting point for the photos with front and backside. If you're going to be doing a lot of these, you might also want to make the scene Read-Only so you won't accidently save over it. You set the Read-Only flag in Explorer, (Windows, no clue how to do this with a Mac,) not in Daz Studio.

    I tried this out over the weekend and the good news is that I have a reflection!  The bad news is that it is a bad one.  Very hazy an d fuzzy.  Is there something else I have to do?

    Thanks

  • L'AdairL'Adair Posts: 9,479
    jukingeo said:
     
    L'Adair said:

    As we've been talking Iray all along, I'm going to assume you're still using Iray. DS ships with some default Iray shaders, including several metal shaders that will work for a mirror.

    I'd recommend using a plane primitive, about 2 M in size, with one poly, Primary Axis depends on where you want the mirror. For the wall on your right, as you look at the scene, use X-Negative; for the left, use X-Positive.

    1. Select the plane in the scene and move it into position.
    2. Go into the Surfaces->Editor and select the Plane.
      • Beginning with the 4.11 beta, (I believe,) the primitive will be created with shaders for the selected render engine, but if you're still using the 4.10 release version, you'll need to apply the Iray Uber Base shader first. Either way:
    3. With the plane selected in both the Scene and Surfaces->Editor, click on the tab for Surfaces Presets.
    4. If you need to apply the Iray Uber Base, In the right column filter field:
      • Type in Uber and then select All or Default in the left column. The first of many icons to display on the right should be the Iray Uber Base Icon 
      • Double-click to apply.
      • Delete Uber from the filter field.
    5. Drill-down from Default to Shaders to Iray to Metal and select Metal.
      • If you have a lot of purchased shaders, you can try filtering by Mirror and see if one of those sets has a specific mirror shader.
      • If not, try applying one of the shiny, reflective metal shaders to the plane.
        • Here are the white shiny metal shaders that ship with Daz Studio: Metal - Aluminum - Polished, Metal - Cobalt, Metal - Iron, Metal - Nickel, Metal - Platinum, Metal - Silver, and Metal - Titanium.
        • I recomment starting with Metal - Silver.

    To get a good reflection, move the set and mirror around your figure and adjust the lighting. You may need to do this several times before you determine the best camera and lighting angles to use. Once you do, I recommend removing the figure from the scene and saving as a starting point for the photos with front and backside. If you're going to be doing a lot of these, you might also want to make the scene Read-Only so you won't accidently save over it. You set the Read-Only flag in Explorer, (Windows, no clue how to do this with a Mac,) not in Daz Studio.

    I tried this out over the weekend and the good news is that I have a reflection!  The bad news is that it is a bad one.  Very hazy an d fuzzy.  Is there something else I have to do?

    Thanks

    I just tested this. It turns out, unless the shader name specifically states "polished," there is a small amount of Glossy Roughness dialed in.* You can "polish" the shader you're currently using by setting that material zone parameter to 0.0. Or just use the Metal - Aluminum - Polished shader.

    *Note: I am referring to the Iray, Daz Uber, Metal shaders included with Daz Studio. Other shaders may do things differently

  • magog_a4eb71abmagog_a4eb71ab Posts: 769

    In this case, you want to achieve consistency between how the reflected and non-reflected article(s) appears in the renders. Adding a primitive plane of an appropriate size and applying the nickel shader to it will give you a mirror. However, the mirror is going to give a slightly darker tint to everything within the reflection. What I do after applying the nickel shader is I adjust the Base Color to 1.00 1.00 1.00 . This way, there won't be any kind of tint throwing off the reflection's colors. I've attached an Iray render completed to 71% showing the results I got when using the aforementioned base color for the metal shader. Notice the lack of color difference between the two in regards to the character's skin, which is what I wanted. This was a problem when using the default Base Color for the various white shiny metal shaders I tried.

    G8FYukaSkinBase3at71p.jpg
    2834 x 2983 - 4M
  • jukingeojukingeo Posts: 711
    edited April 2019
    L'Adair said:

    I just tested this. It turns out, unless the shader name specifically states "polished," there is a small amount of Glossy Roughness dialed in.* You can "polish" the shader you're currently using by setting that material zone parameter to 0.0. Or just use the Metal - Aluminum - Polished shader.

    *Note: I am referring to the Iray, Daz Uber, Metal shaders included with Daz Studio. Other shaders may do things differently

    OK Got it!  This worked!

    Thanks All!

    And yes...this is a mother / daughter pair.

    Geo

    1MirrorTest.png
    1141 x 922 - 1M
    Post edited by Chohole on
  • 3dNoob3dNoob Posts: 3

    Thank you to everyone here for this great advice!  I've been tinkering and frettiing wiht Reflect Me for weeks and most other discussions see (to me) vague and incomplete with their recommendations.  The default settings were :P and the best I could get were some subtle reflections on a black background; I'm not the smartest person around but I did implement all the suggested settings and double and triple checked them repeatedly.  Maybe I wasn't clenching my teeth tight enough.  Whatever.  It was not until I saw the mention of polished aluminum shaders and then the link to the mirror shader in this thread did I get any positive results.  They both work splendidly!!!

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