Materials only reflect fluids that are in the initial camera view?

# 1 16-03-2012 , 08:04 AM

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Materials only reflect fluids that are in the initial camera view?

Hi all!

I'm fairly new to maya, so bear with me! I have a seriously irritating problem. i'm trying to render a simple animation in which i have a reflective surface and i want it to reflect ink-drops generated by maya fluids. Here's the problem:

the fluid reflects fine ONLY where it has been rendered in the original camera view. based on what i can see in the reflection, the reflected fluid simply 'ends' at the equivalent point that it's original counterpart goes out of shot. It is particulary irritating as there are some shots in which i need the fluid to be behind the camera which is in turn facing the surfuce looking only for the reflection. in these cases, nothing at all is reflected!

I'm absolutely desparate as i have an upcoming deadline and i'm beginning to feel i have bitten off more than i can chew!!

grateful for any help at all!

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# 2 16-03-2012 , 08:23 AM

The thin red line
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screen shot please.........dave

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# 3 16-03-2012 , 08:26 AM

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check the reflections on the material reflecting and reflected I had a similar problem with a mirror not reflecting everything in the shot including shadows etc. under the attribute editor under Raytrace options set your reflection limit higher on the reflecting material.

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# 4 16-03-2012 , 08:38 AM

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thanks daverave, as it's dealing with fluids i'm just rendering out the sequence until theres enough fluid to demonstrate properly (unless theres a way to render out just one frame containing fluid a it should be behaving at that point in the sequence? please bear with me, this is all pretty new to me!!) shouldnt be too long now.

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# 5 16-03-2012 , 08:57 AM

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@MamouruK

I guess you're referring to the 'max distance' setting? its already set to 100 in an attempt to fix the problem!

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# 6 16-03-2012 , 08:59 AM

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Negative, click the tab for your material whatever its labeled as Blinn1, Phong1, etc. or just double click it in your hypershade and under the Raytrace Options>Reflection Limit.

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# 7 16-03-2012 , 09:14 AM

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heres a link to a screenshot of the attribute editor after i double click on my shader (which is the car paint one)

https://www.flickr.com/photos/7802429...in/photostream

there doesnt appear to be a 'raytrace options' menu item in the attribute editor?

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# 8 16-03-2012 , 09:18 AM

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what was the initial material?

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# 9 16-03-2012 , 09:21 AM

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mi_car_paint_phen

it was red, but all ive adjusted was to change it to black...?

@daverave

I'm almost done rendering two images, one showing a distant shot with both original and reflection, the other is a close shot demonstrating the issue.

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# 10 16-03-2012 , 09:29 AM

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no i meant was it a blinn, a phong, a lmabert, etc?

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# 11 16-03-2012 , 09:35 AM

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@daverave, here they are. This first one is the distance shot

https://www.flickr.com/photos/7802429...ream/lightbox/

and this one is the close up.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/7802429...ream/lightbox/

as mentioned, both from exactly the same frame of the animation, but its clear to see that anything going out of shot, or possibly behind the camera just seems to evaporate!

any help would be so welcome!

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# 12 16-03-2012 , 09:46 AM

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@MamoruK

apologies if im making you bang your head against the wall!! it appeared to be none of the above, i simply chose "mi_car_paint_phen" from the hypershade, see the picture:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/7802429...ream/lightbox/

and changed its colour? i think i also effectively removed the 'flake' effect by taking down its 'flake color' slider.

...?

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# 13 16-03-2012 , 10:30 AM

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so...

i'm guessing the only answer may be to choose a different material? ive been trying to avoid that mainly because it means re rendering all my prior scenes!

definitely no other way?

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# 14 16-03-2012 , 09:25 PM

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hello,
car paint seems like an odd choice for a fluid. couple of things

100 max distance is less than 0 (0 is no max distance)
What are your raytrace settings in your render globals?
are you comping this? do you need to render the fluid and the reflection together?

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# 15 16-03-2012 , 10:31 PM

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thanks for getting back, honestdom.

as mentioned, i'm really pretty new to maya, so im not really sure yet how id go about comping. would that be simply rendering the scene, then just the reflection and cobbling that into aftereffects?

My animation will basically be a fairly minimal black, shapeshifting object on a white background with ink drops (maya fluids) floating around it. The car paint choice was a considered one. after messing about with a few shaders, this was the only one that i was happy with for my object, but its important that it reflects the inkdrops in any situation.

as far as the render settings go, i've rendered the sequence out with everything between 'draft' quality and 'production' quality, i've even tried tinkering with various custom setups, but i'm aware that in production quality the raytracing options are all maxed out, so i'm guessing it just should work. but doesn't properly!

thanks for the tip about max rendering distance. it was at zero originally, so i assumed that this was the problem, hence i maxed it to 100. it's safely back at 0 following your advice!

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Materials only reflect fluids that are in the initial camera view?

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