Possible for a material to reflect background image?

[blanaba]

I need to render an addition to a waterfront skyline. The water reflects the existing skyline. Is there a way to make a material (water in this case) reflect the backplate image?


In the quick example below I would need the treeline to be also reflected on the lake, not just the orange boxes and the hdri sky.

[Ed]

blanaba  -

Here is a quick test I did.  I used the KeyShot ground plane with water material.  Then imported a plane object and set it 90 degrees to the water.  Then applied your lake photo to this "facade" as a texture (color).  Then imported my sphere object.

I think with a little more work on this simple technique (such as adding objects floating on the water), you can get the results you want.

Ed Ferguson

[blanaba]

Thanks Ed!

Too bad it has to be done as a workaround, but the result is exactly what I need. Would be great if keyshot had camera or view mapping for the UVs, where the backplate object position, size and alignment wouldn't matter as long as it fills the frame and you could just "project" the texture onto it.