Infinite Reflections 2.1
Necessary conditions for the assembly to work correctly:
1) All normals must be directed outward.
2) You should use Cycles and increase the number of bounces of Glossy rays in the Light Paths tab as much as you need , I use 18.
This geometry nodes assembly creates three layers for any object: Frame , Glass , Lamps. Each of these layers can be flexibly adjusted to achieve the desired result. Each mesh needs different settings as they differ in shape.
All edges of the original mesh are used to create the Frame and Lamps. If you need that not every edge was used, then you should select the necessary edges in Edit mode , create a Vertex Group and assign selected edges to it, then in the modifier settings, click on the box next to the "vertex group" item and select the desired Vertex Group in the field that appears . This will allow you to create smooth shapes like a spherical object with edges like the cube on the front right side of the demo file.
Describtion of Settings:
General settings:Mirror - turn on/off Mirror (might be useful if you dont need this element or for debugging)
Light - turn on/off Light
Frame - turn on/off Frame
Vertex group - Creates a Light and Frame on the specified vertex group. This is necessary if you don’t want to turn every edge into Light and Frame, for example in high poly or mid poly models - where without such control everything will turn into an incomprehensible mess, or in other usecases according to your wishes and needs
Mirror settings:
Material of Mirror - Choose material for Mirror (its defined by defaul , but you can change it if you want)
Mirror Shade Smooth - Makes the Mirror's shading smooth. This can be useful in mid-poly and high-poly models, where if each polygon were an independent mirror, then everything would turn into a mess (but this doesn’t always happen, in some cases it can look nice). Also, if you want some places to be smooth and some to remain flat, you can select those edges that should be flat (for example, these could be edges from the same group of vertices that you selected above) and in the edit mode mark them as " mark sharp" and then they will be flat (in versions before 4.0 you will need to activate the Auto smooth function, in 4.0 you can immediately mark Shade Auto Smooth, but in 4.1 you don’t need to do anything additional)
Light settings:
Material of Light - Choose material for Light (its defined by defaul , but you can change it if you want)
Scale - usual scaling
Scale along normal - more accurate scaling taking into account the shape of the object (I recommend using it)
Trim Light - crops Light starting from the edges to their center. May be useful for design changes
Light profile resolution - profile resolution. The larger it is, the smoother it is, but too high a resolution can affect performance
Light radius - radius of light
Frame settings:
Material of Frame - Choose material for Frame (its defined by defaul , but you can change it if you want)
Scale - usual scaling
Scale along normal - more accurate scaling taking into account the shape of the object (I recommend using it)
Profile resolution - profile resolution. The larger it is, the smoother it is, but too high a resolution can affect performance
Profile radius - radius of Frame
Spheres - Spheres are needed to hide the connections of the Frame. You can disable them if necessary
Spheres subdivision - Spheres are just icospheres, you can adjust their resolution to make them look more or less smooth
Scale of spheres - scales the spheres relative to the frame radius. May be useful if you want to modify the design a little
To add an assembly to your project, you need to click on the "File" button on the upper left corner of Blender, then "Append", then find the "Infinite reflections APPEND FILE.blend" on your PC and click on it, then in the "Node groups" folder select "Infinite reflections". Then select the desired object , add the "geometry nodes" modifier and select "infinite reflections".
Three basic procedural materials are included in the assembly, they are needed to create the effect of Infinite reflections, you can change them or use your own instead, but follow the following recommendations for everything to work correctly:
1) You can do anything in the material of Frame
2) The Lamps material must be Emissive, but with the choice of color you have complete freedom.
3) I strongly do not recommend changing or replacing with your own Glass material, as it is the basis of everything and changing it can ruin everything. Change it if you are confident in your abilities and know what you want to achieve with it.
If scale does not work correctly on your mesh, please use Scale along normals .
Also, if you have problems with Glass shading (or any other layer - Lamps or Frame), try changing the "Glass Shade Smooth"(or another corresponding layer's shade smooth setting) item in the modifier settings.
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