Just playing: kaleidoscope

[voxelman]

I love the ability of KS to simulate various optical effects. Here is an animation looking through a kaleidoscope at one of the standard scenes.

[DriesV]

Oh my, I was looking at that thing for 5 minutes before I released it was looping in my media player  .

Very mesmerizing!

[guest84672]

Excellent - if you hide the environment and maybe increase the raybounces it will be even more mesmerizing.

[voxelman]

Excellent - if you hide the environment and maybe increase the raybounces it will be even more mesmerizing.

I created a shield to hid the environment but now I can't get the centers of rotation to line up. For this to work the model of the kaleidoscope has to rotate in the opposite of the direction of the camera and they need to rotate around the same center. Somehow I've gotten the two out of alignment and the kaleidoscope "wobbles".

[guest84672]

Hide the environment by hitting "C" - or go to the environment tab and select "color". Then adjust the color.

[voxelman]

Hide the environment by hitting "C" - or go to the environment tab and select "color". Then adjust the color.

Hmm, doesnt seem to work as I expected. The mirrors don't seem to see the background, only the environment.

[PhilippeV8]

For your animation, doesn't it work if you keep the camera steady and make the kaleidoscope rotate around its ax ?  The ax that is in the direction you are looking.  That's how I used to play with them .. look at a fixed point and rotate them.

[voxelman]

For your animation, doesn't it work if you keep the camera steady and make the kaleidoscope rotate around its axis ?  The axis that is in the direction you are looking.  That's how I used to play with them .. look at a fixed point and rotate them.

I haven't tried your suggested approach ie rotating the environment, because I wasn't smart enough to think of it. But that doesn't explain what I'm seeing using Thomas Teger's suggestion to replace the environment with a color background (to make it more mesmerizing). The reflections should be of the color background but it is still showing the environment. I've attached the data-set I'm using above so you can try your idea.

[PhilippeV8]

Background plate doesn't do anything for lighting and/or reflections .. that's normal !  Thomas suggested this in order to only show color inside the kaleidoscope and not around the outside.

[voxelman]

Background plate doesn't do anything for lighting and/or reflections .. that's normal !  Thomas suggested this in order to only show color inside the kaleidoscope and not around the outside.

Ok, but a kaleidoscope works by virtue of the reflections off of the internal mirror surfaces, so using a background won't work because the mirror surfaces only "see" the lighting environment.