2 replies to this topic

[Lynx]

This tutorial was made by Flyby on Deezire but some people where having a hard time finding it so...

After reading a request on how to make reflective surfaces, I decided to share some of the alchemy to turn bitmaps into quicksilver

A test sample of what you can achieve:
here

Now the way to do it :
a reflective surface is in fact a composite of 2 bitmaps. One with what you could call a "normal" texture and one that will serve as reflection.
You need to adjust the texture settings on 3 levels:
-Vertex Material
-Shader
-Textures

You start in the textures tab, by assigning your regular texture bitmap to the "stage 0 texture". For stage 1 you need a nice looking sky or environment bitmap. While still on stage1 set the pass hint to "environment map".

Then jump to Vertex Material and choose "WS environment" for stage 1 Mapping. It is by far the best looking.

Get to the Shader tab now and set the advanced option like in the picture.

Pics-
1
2
3

Credit goes to Flyby, thanks for writing a kick ass tut!

Edited by Monkeystuff, 05 February 2005 - 11:40 AM.

[Mr Boo]

Hey MonkeyStuff,

Thought I'd give ya a bit of an update to this excellent method.

In Pic 1 You can leave the Second texture to Base Map

In Pic 2 You should change the Emmissive to WHITE

In Pic 3 You shoud change Pri Gradient to MODULAR

And also note that the more "white" in your models texture the more "reflective" it will be, but all white to too much white will also blur out details on the texture and just make it way too shiney. A little off white to grey works great.

You can also experment with the first texture and use different colors, as goes the same for the second. Been testing with all kinds of patterns and wild images and getting really wacked results from plasma type boiling balls to dark flowing enegry...