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Relections
Hi fellows cows
I’m working on a project that uses the ever-so-popular “wet-floor” effect.
I have placed a white rectangle as the floor and made it reflective.
On the floor I’m using 3 kinds of content, and the reflections behave differently for all 3 kinds.1. the box is made from simple rectangles, a picture and some text. ts reflections behave like you would expect them to.
2. next up is the splash with the funny dottet line around it. The line is made using the one-color ray generator with a mask. The text inside the splash reflects, but the generator does not.
3. finally the phones. they are replicated. Notice how their reflection is not really a reflection, but rather a copy placed underneath, but not mirrored like you would expect a reflection to be.
Has anyone run into similar issues before?
I’m guessing this is a bug (two bugs) in Motion, and any workaround I can think of seems like a lot more work than it is worth.
Do any of you guys have any thoughts on this? -
5 Replies
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Well, the reason you can’t see the reflection with the dotted line is because you have that layer masked.
Reflections don’t work with masked layers. You can work around that limitation a bit by cloning the masked layer. The clone will retain a reflection.
As far as your phones…well, all I can say is that it’s not a bug. I can’t reproduce your problem, reflections work fine with replicators.
Perhaps there’s something in the makeup of the project that’s causing it to behave this way. Without seeing the project it’d be hard to say.
Andy
https://www.timesavertutorials.com
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Hi Andy
Thanks a lot for your input.
I did not know that masked objects can not have reflections. However, if I clone this layer, my clone is invisible.
Another workaround to this would be to render out just the splash with an alpha channel, and then bring it back in to the project, so that one I’m sure I can figure out somehow.The replicator issue, on the other hand, is a mystery to me.
I have used replicators with reflections before without problems, but this one has me puzzled.
I have attached my source file that you can have a look at if you feel so inclined.1628_smartaftalegenereltspot0001.zip
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Ok, here’s what I discovered.
First, the easy problem. The reason your reflections aren’t turning out right with the replicator is because you have the Face Camera button turned on for the replicator. Apparently, that button is causing the reflections to flip around. I would probably classify this as a bug since the face camera button shouldn’t cause this issue. However there is a work around.
You can turn off the face button camera, and then turn the replicator sources on the Y axis. This will reposition them in the replicator in the same manner that the face camera button does. Then, when you rotate the replicator, apply the same rotation to the source layers (it helps if they’re grouped together), but in the opposite way. In other words, if you rotate the replicator 60 degrees, then rotate the source pics -60 degrees.
As for the dotted line, the clone idea works. The reason you thought it disappeared was because the clone wasn’t created in the same part of the timeline as the original so it wasn’t showing up. Here’s what I did:
First, I took the 2-color ray, and the circle used to mask it, out of the group that it’s in. I put it in its own group and made that group 2D. In the generator tab, I turned off the opacity for the white layer since you don’t need a white layer (this is optional, I just noticed that you colored one ray the same as your bkg and floor). I reset the transformation for those layers so that they were at 0,0. Then I cloned the entire ray group. It’s important to clone the group and not just the ray because the ray has the image mask applied, and that will affect the clone during animation causing it to be invisible unless it occupies the same space as the masked layer.
I drop the clone into the group where the ray used to be. Now I have a reflection for the dotted line.
Hope this helps.
Andy
https://www.timesavertutorials.com
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Hi Andy
That is incredibly helpful.
Thanks a lot for taking the time to look at my files. -
You gotta love Creative COW forums!
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