reflect node

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The Reflect node has attributes that control how light is reflected from a surface. Reflect nodes never exist by themselves; they are part of the makeup of other shading nodes, such as Blinn or PhongE.

Aside from the attributes described here, the Reflect node inherits many attributes from its parent Lambert node.

In the table below, important attribute have their names indicated in bold in the description column.

This node is abstract

This node is MP safe

Node name	Parents	Classification	MFn type	Compatible function sets
reflect	lambert	rendernode

Attributes (15)

reflectedColor, reflectedColorB, reflectedColorG, reflectedColorR, reflectionLimit, reflectionSpecularity, reflectivity, specularColor, specularColorB, specularColorG, specularColorR, triangleNormalCamera, triangleNormalCameraX, triangleNormalCameraY, triangleNormalCameraZ

Long name (short name) Type Default Flags

reflectionLimit (fll) short 1

reflected ray depth limit

specularColor (sc) float3

Specular Color is the color of the specular reflections (also called 'hot spots') on the material. The final color of a specular reflection is a combination of the Specular Color and the color of the light.

By making the Specular Color brighter or dimmer, you can control the brightness of the specular reflections on an object.

Tip: To make a material look more plastic, use white for the specular color. To make a material look more metallic, make the specular color similar to the surface color.

specularColorR (sr) float 0.5

specular color red value

specularColorG (sg) float 0.5

specular color green value

specularColorB (sb) float 0.5

specular color blue value

reflectivity (rfl) float 0.5

Reflectivity is used to make an object reflect light like a mirror. Set this to 0 is you do not want your material to reflect at all. Increase the value to make brighter reflections. Note that brighter reflections hide more of the base surface color.

This attribute is only meaningful if there is a reflection map, or if you are doing Ray Tracing.

Here are some useful values for Reflectivity:

Note: If you are doing Ray Tracing, and you want other objects in the scene to be seen in reflections, then you must turn on the Visible In Reflections attribute of those objects.

reflectedColor (rc) float3

Reflected Color affects the color of light reflected from the material.

You can map an image or texture or environment map to this attribute in order to make 'fake reflections', which are less expensive than ray-tracing. This is called Reflection Mapping.

Reflection Mapping and raytracing may be used together, in which case the reflection map is used as 'background', and raytraced reflections appear in the 'foreground'.

reflectedColorR (rr) float 0.0

reflected color red value

reflectedColorG (rg) float 0.0

reflected color green value

reflectedColorB (rb) float 0.0

reflected color blue value

triangleNormalCamera (tnc) float3

Triangle Normal In Camera Space This is the normal of the visible triangle in the camera space.

This normal is used to check the reflection direction is not in the opposite direction of the normal of the visible triangle.

triangleNormalCameraX (tnx) float 0.0

triangle normal x value

triangleNormalCameraY (tny) float 1.0

triangle normal y value

triangleNormalCameraZ (tnz) float 0.0

triangle normal z value

reflectionSpecularity (rsp) float 1.0

Reflection Specular controls the contribution of the specular component when dealing with reflection rays for ray tracing. I.e., the specular contribution when seen as a mirror reflection.