Creating a "real" mirror?

spirp · Post by **spirp** » Sun May 25, 2008 2:43 am

Hi all!

New to the forums here, so I'll start with a quick presentation - my name is Olle, live and work in Uppsala, Sweden. I work as an interior designer, primarily with restaurants/night clubs, and use Indigo/Skindigo to render my interiors prior to presentation for the client.

My current problem is regarding mirrors without frames, that is, just a slab of glass with a reflective coating on the backside. How would you all go about creating a realistic mirror like this?

My approach (currently toasting) is to create a slab/cube with the front and sides in a glass-material, and on the back, I paint with a mirror-material as well as flipping the normal. This cube/slab-thingie is grouped, and then another rectangle is added (same size as the backside of the mirror). This rectangle is grouped and positioned so that it's back to back to the mirror, and the face is then painted in a matte gray. The separate face (the matte gray one) is to make the mirror fully opaque when viewed from the back.

Any comments/suggestions? Any other ideas on howto accomplish this? My main issue is that the edges of the mirror will be visible, therefor I don't want to paint the front surface with the mirror-material. Just realized that I should've used a frosted glass for the edges - they will after all, be polished (wouldn't want my customer cutting his fingers, would I?)

// Olle

Kram1032 · Post by **Kram1032** » Sun May 25, 2008 4:29 am

Could you post an image of that? - Nice idea, though that's one of the grey zones where nobody can tell you whether it's physically plausible...
Better (though a bit more complex) would be to have two cuboids, one with a glass- and the second one with a reflective material

The grey plane can stay as is, I'd say....

spirp · Post by **spirp** » Sun May 25, 2008 5:12 am

Sure I can!

I've attached a .skp with an explanation, and the result of aprox 1h cooking time on the model in wich I'm trying the method (I'm rendering at a higher resolution than the attached image, I'm not - I repeat, not - using a 386DX

. Unfortunately the mirror looks a tad to dark, but that might be a result of me rendering with one wall missing (the room is just 1.7x2m, so it's kind of hard to get a good angle without messing up the FOV totally), and the environment is set to black (which is also obvious by looking at the shower, which is chromed).

If this doesn't work, I'll try your method. It's not that much more complex, at least not when we're talking about just a couple of mirrors. I guess that when using your suggestion, I could just as well ignore the matte gray, as I could recreate that effect from the cube with mirrored surface.

By the way - any tips on how to render small interior spaces? Any one?

// Olle

kwistenbiebel · Post by **kwistenbiebel** » Sun May 25, 2008 6:35 am

I often render a mirror as 'chrome ' metal. Works fine for me.

spirp · Post by **spirp** » Sun May 25, 2008 7:53 am

Hi Biebel!

Knowing your skill, I appreciate all input you can give! Sometimes I use chrome for mirrors, but with the presets in SkIndigo, I find it easy enough to use the mirror-preset. Don't know wether it's slower or faster than using chrome, but it's easy enough

On a side note - I'm looking forward to getting back to the office tomorrow to check on my progress - imagine that - being excited about going to work on a sunday

// Olle

kwistenbiebel · Post by **kwistenbiebel** » Sun May 25, 2008 9:20 am

Spirp, Are you going to check on that render of the bathroom?
That's exciting.

When using emitters ,it is often good practice to use 'Reinhard tonemapping' as it can prevent the image from becoming 'burnt' in certain areas.

Another tip for that light above the sink: using IES light profiles is a good method to control light intensity (you can find IES files on the internet from manufacters of light fixtures).

And a last tip: the 'Violet' tonemapper is useful ,especially on interior scenes containg artificial light emitters. (you can download Violet from the main page)

That bathroom is looking good so far. Keep us updated

spirp · Post by **spirp** » Mon May 26, 2008 1:47 am

Unfortunately, sometime during the night (I accidentally deleted the logs

, so I have no clue when), Indigo died on me, so I never even got more than 500 spp. I guess I'll have to give it another try tonight, if I get IES-lights to work.

Since I don't have the IES data of that specific spotlight, I googled some, and found another downlight with the same characteristics, so I guess it'll have to do, until I can get the right IES-data (if it's available at all).

// Olle

Kram1032 · Post by **Kram1032** » Mon May 26, 2008 2:10 am

save IGI to resume

That can save you at least partly from such problems.

spirp · Post by **spirp** » Mon May 26, 2008 2:14 am

doh, should've thought of that!

duoduo · Post by **duoduo** » Mon Jun 30, 2008 4:09 pm

36 Time(s) Incredible!!!!!!!!!
Configuration?

Borgleader · Post by **Borgleader** » Tue Jul 01, 2008 1:37 am

That render looks pretty darn good

spirp · Post by **spirp** » Tue Jul 01, 2008 2:16 am

@duoduo:I noticed that - 36 downloads, and no suggestions

unfortunate. However, I haven't been able to continue with this project, so any suggestions would probably gone to waste anyways

I'll hope I can pick this up in the future though.

Don't know what configuration you're talking about, but I guess you mean my computer specs? It's really not that exciting - an AMD Athlon 64 X2 4000+ with 2 gigs of ram. Takes forever to bake something at least half descent, but heck - I got it for free, so I guess I shouldn't complain

@borgleader: Thank's mate! I'm currently working on a few other bathrooms and what not, I'll guess I'll publish them later, when they're done! Thank's again for the compliment - makes it all worth while!

// Olle

Creating a "real" mirror?

Creating a "real" mirror?

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