Come learn the art of 3D computer generated art and animation. This blog deals with the lessons learned and the art created by Robert G. Male using DazStudio from Daz3D.
Also covered are the ancillary software, tools, techniques, and processes needed both before and after rending in the 3D software.
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I've talked about reflections recently. I covered lighting conditions on either side of the mirror in the figurative sense. Recently I went into detail about postproduction using two different renders. These work for reflections created by the render engine as well as the two-camera method--the other looking out from the reflective surface into the scene from the other direction. Another method briefly mentioned was recreating the scene, but turned 180 degrees, and put on the other side of the mirror. The Killing Time - Horror E-Rag Issue 1-1 back cover (and consequently 1-2 front cover) illustrates this double mirrored scene. There is a twist in this image of course. The mirror figure is not identical because it is a doppelganger in a mirror dimension. I decided to talk about this image to illustrate a couple other factors necessary, or possible, in creating such scenes.
First up is how do you create what is essentially a window to be the mirror through which the reflection is seen? It's a sad fact that this is not as easy as it sounds. The textures for walls in settings and scenes are created as a large image map and different parts of the map are fitted to their respective surfaces. I could have created a transparency map using the texture map to make part of the wall transparent. Instead I used four plane primitives to create the wall with an opening. I applied a section of the texture map to those planes, which runs into scaling factor. The texture has to be the right size visually and the planes large enough at the same time. That done a fifth plane becomes the mirror. It is plain white and requires no external transparency map, just an amount of transparency. This actually removes some of the lighting needs to make the other side look like a reflection.
