Reflaction not rendering in Mental ray!!??

[telmog]

Hi

I have applied a very reflective shader (first Phone, then Blinn, mia_material_x set the chrome) on a plain (it show be a mirror with the high reflectively I have given it). And in Maya Software it is a mirror in render but in Mental Ray it is not reflecting a thing except for some geometry, badly. 

YES I HAVE RAYTRACING ON! and I cranked the setting very high.

Can any one out there please fill me in on what I'm doing wrong!

Thank you.

With Targa for Image texture

 With jpeg for image texture

My render settings

[damaggio]

It's hard to see in your small image ... Can u zip the file and post it here?

[telmog]

HI

thanks for replying!

here is the .ma file ziped

Jim

[damaggio]

Thanks Telmog...here's the things to fix...

The sphere for reflection has to have an image applied to a surface shader out color not a lambert (this method is really not professional either, you should be using an IBL sphere with mental ray and an HDR spherical image and linear workflow)...having said that you can still use this old method and get away with a nice image.

The mia chrome settings should have diffuse 100% black , weight to 1 and BRDF 0 degree to 1

Use Final gather and raytracing

Blinns are more tricky and inaccurate because you have to set the reflection limit to at least 3 and Lights  should always have   Ray depth limit to at least 3....the Mia x doesn't have this problem because is a physically accurate shader and ideal to use with Mental ray.

Keep on going.

[damaggio]

here's one render

[telmog]

Thanks so much damaggio

great insight!

I'm still a bit confused about one thing thou. The sphere is only being used to have something for the plane below to reflect. That the sphere has a lambert shader is not something I would be of consequence.  

[damaggio]

Sure, just apply the  the chrome mia to both sphere and plane...now your scene had a rectangular cube and a flat plane sitting on top of it, don't know why you had two objects there. also your lambert sphere with Background image is not gonna be providing any lighting for the scene "just reflaection" and you didn't have any lights set up inside the sphere...you gonna need fianl gather in there.

[telmog]

Hi damaggio

I'm Still having trouble. Please see my .ma zip file.

[damaggio]

directional  light angle is for soft shadows, your value is way too high ..maybe around .5 ray depth limit as mentioned before 3 light cannot go thru sphere if you dont disable sphere cast shadows in render stats.

do not put any maps for reflections in the mia...its chrome already so its reflecting everything.....your scene is way to large which means you gonna have to enter insane values for the lights...I have reduced it also lights should have quadractic setting.

[telmog]

Thank you for the .ma file. But I was not able to open it properly, the scene is empty. Something got lost in translation.

So its because of the lights and scene scale that the mia material on the poly cube or plane is not reflecting a thing in the scene?

[damaggio]

I just unziped it from my post and is all in there, give it another try...its maya 2015 try to open with ignore version checked.

[telmog]

I did open it with ignor version turned on. but it still gives me an error massage "Warning: Errors have occurred while reading this scene that may result in data loss"

can you export an fbx or save as maya 2011 ?

[telmog]

demaggio

I'm still scatching my god-dame head bold!!!!!!!!   I gave to smaller sphere a surface shader, and a hdr texture to the out color. I set the mia_materal I want to be a mirror to all the setting you sugested!

Why Im I still not seeing one single ioda of a god dame REFLECTION!!!!!

[damaggio]

oKay Telmog, no need to loose your hair, I m gonna guide u thru this again.

Create a sphere as background ,under render stats uncheck cast shadows...assign surface shader and put an image into Out Color

Create a blinn color black , reflection 1, Eccentricity .055  specular roll off to 1 specular color white

reflection limit of blinn 3

Create a directional light Use raytrace shadows Ray depth limit 3

In Mental Ray set to raytrace, reflections 4 refraction 4 trace depth 10 shadows 4

Render...if that works for you then you can switch the blinn for a Mia X

[telmog]

here's what Im getting

[damaggio]

there's trees in the background and then there's a kitchen reflection on the sphere, doesn't look like what I told u to do.

[telmog]

If I don't have a texture aplyed to the BG or spire that will the plane have to reflect? 

[michel_men]

Hello,

you don't need any Light in Scene, only MR, IBL and Mia Material X with Chrome Settings. FG is also not a must have, only default Render Settings.

Make it as easy as posible!

PS

U can put any HDR-File in the MR-IBL Node to reflect in Mia Material...