how to render & skin a Glass Ball on White Background

[Anonymous]

Hi All,

I'd like to have a completely white background (hopefully a little reflective) with a glass ball (tinted light blue) with "HF" in the middle of the ball. The light source will be from the top right.

Problems so far:
-the HF (imported eps 8 illustrator file) if put inside the glass ball actually refracts against the sides. I would like it to show undistorted.
-if I have the floor where it is actually white then the glass ball get's way to light (it picks up too much of the background color and doesn't show the same pretty color that I want when it has a gray floor) and practically disappears.

What's working:
-the wall is white and looks nice
-the shadow/highlight of the light through the glass ball looks nice


Thanks for all your help,
Holly

[Anonymous]

Here is an image to see what I am asking.

[donest]

I'm not an expert but might help a little. If it were me, I would use the type tool in Alias to make the letters. You can then leave them flat and place them inside the ball, or you can project them onto the surface and divide that surface away from the ball. This way you can assign a different shader to the letters.
As for reversing the top and bottom colors of the ball, try looking into your shader parameters. You should be able to rotate the shader 180 degrees or experiment with different projection types (ball, triplanar, sphere, etc.)

[Anonymous]

Thanks! I'll try it!