For panels B-D the 'reflection' channel of the floor and wall panes was set to 100%. For panels B-D a second point light source was added at the same position to increase the available light. The illumination provided by a point source drops off rapidly with distance from the source. All the light in this scene comes from a point light source positioned at the center of the sphere and set to intensity of 200%. Panel A shows the appearance of a wall and floor made using default settings for panes made using the Create>Primitive command in DAZ Studio. However, if you want to render a coherent reflection (such as a person's reflection in a mirror) you need to make use of the 'reflection' controls in the 'Advanced' settings for Surfaces.įigure 2 illustrates some results obtained by changing the settings for the 'reflection', 'diffuse' and 'ambient' channels for the surfaces of the walls and floor in the scene.

DAZ Studio allows you to control three channels ('diffuse', 'specular' and 'ambient') allow the rendering process to quickly simulate reflection of light from most surfaces. Materials can be selective in terms of which colors (wavelengths) of light they reflect. When we see objects that reflect light, the color of the reflected light depends both on the color of the light falling on the object and the material of the object. With diffuse reflection, the surface of the object scatters the reflected light in many different directions. If there is mostly diffuse reflection then the directions of reflected photons are not consistent with the original directions of the photons that fell on the surface and it is not possible to obtain an image or coherent view (what we typically call a 'reflection') of the original light source from the reflected photons. If there is a large amount of specular reflection then the organization and coherence of the original light falling on the object is retained in the reflected light. The distinction is in the organization of the reflected light that leaves the surface. In terms of physics, there is a distinction between Diffuse reflection and Specular reflection. The name 'reflection channel' is somewhat misleading because the 'diffuse', 'specular' and 'ambient' channels also allow objects in the scene to be rendered as they would appear because of reflecting light.

For this example, the surfaces of the walls and floor were set to have the reflection channel set to 100%.

The human figure and the cat have surfaces for which the reflection channel is set to 0%. The human figure and cat are from the 3D Starter Pack. There are two other types of objects in the scene, those with no 'mirror-like' reflectivity and those with 'mirror-like' reflectivity.

Figure 1 shows an example of a scene that has a single light source, a glowing cube. This tutorial covers both the use of light sources and examples of how to alter the surface properties of objects to change how they appear when exposed to light sources.

Daz glowing inside object