How to Make Reflection Falloff with Distance

[Mark Walczak]

Hi everyone,

I have a simple scenario that’s missing a small touch that I need to add. Imagine a large pillar standing on a floor object that is reflective. I am basically wanting the reflection of the pillar to get more transparent as the floor reflects from the bottom of the pillar to the top. This sort of effect is super-simple to fake in AE, but was wondering if there was a way to do it in Cinema 4D.

Thoughts?

Thanks in advance!

What makes you explode?
http://www.explosivegraffix.com

[randy johnson]

Load a gradient into the reflection channel of your floor material.
/Randy

[Mark Walczak]

Hm, I tried that but got varying results. I tried both a U and V ramp, but to no avail. Can anyone else confirm this method?

What makes you explode?
http://www.explosivegraffix.com

[Brian Jones]

you could try a Fresnel shader in the reflection channel that will work if the pillar is alone but if you have pillars in the background their reflection would be strong all the way to the top.
Another way would be to have two pillars in the same place with compositing tags. One pillar to be seen by the camera and one with transparency with a gradient (so it’s transparent toward the top) that is only seen in the reflection.

[Adam Trachtenberg]

Try putting the gradient in the reflection channel — type 2D-V — and set the material’s texture tag to Projection>Camera Mapping. Drag the render camera into the tag’s camera slot. You’ll get a better effect if you also use a little bit of blurriness in the reflection channel. Also a good idea to put the gradient in a layer shader and multiply fresnel over it.