Mirrors and other things on the wall

[nunemaj]

First a specific question about mirrors.  Why is the "mirror" appearance image black?  It would be more realisitic to have it produce a reflection of your room and light, no?

And more generally, I had a hard time getting my mirror element to hang on a wall over a bathroom vanity cabinet.  I ended up moving the cabinet away from the wall a few inches and then placing the mirror directly above it, but neither are actually touching the wall.  Also, I could only manage to place a mirror using the 2D view, since I couldn't control the depth of placement in 3D.  Is there a better way?

[Doug.S]

Getting a reflection is a costly computation (render) and for normal screen display it uses too many CPU/GPU resources so its left a plain color and black is a typical choice for opaque or 100% reflective in any 3D program.  I have not tried in this version but you may be able to alter the color...but it may affect the rendered color as well.

Not tried your second question yet in TFP but had no similar issues in FP11.  Suggest you turn of "collision detection" and see if that helps.

Doug.S

[nunemaj]

I turned off collision detection and that allowed me to move things to where I thought they should go, although I don't see why I'd have to do that.  Seems like you ought to be able to hang things on a wall and put cabinets/furniture against a wall.  Oh well.

As for the mirror rendering, I don't see why I should bother.  I was hoping to get an idea for how a mirror might lighten up a small bath space, but without even the idea of light reflection if not actual object reflections, a black square doesn't really help in that regard.

Oh well.  Thanks for the response, Doug.

--Jenny

[Allan Chesney]

Jenny.

Have you tried the 3D real View? (View Menu)
This will give you an exact reflection and lighting.

See the mirror in the images under Tips section of the forum called 'Excellent Renders are Possible.. Etc'

Re moving - you may need to check your settings under Settings Drawing Aids - snap distances etc are all settable. Use the keyboard arrow keys to Nudge objects in tiny increments.

Allan

[Kajvin - Robert W]

Look at the option for behavior for the mirror and make sure that this option is set to back and for precision of the placement on the wall zoom in the wall. And for the reflection of the mirror look at Allans reply, it work very nice bu take some time if you will have the best quality.
Robert