Wasn’t sure how else to put that.
I’m hoping to create a render of a model, Just the ground shadow (might not always be planar), and Just the reflection.
I got the first two no problem. But I can’t figure out a good way to do the reflection. The best I can think of is to duplicate my entire model into another collection Not linked so I can give it a completely new material. Assign that collection emissive white, but make the collection View Layer > Set indirect Only, for a reflection mask view layer. No lights, or anything either. I’d Just have the reflection plane object as the same glossy material I want to render with, and the only thing it’s reflecting is the model which is now pure white emissive. The rest of the scene would be black.
So all you get then is a black and white mask for the object’s reflection.
Use that as a mask for the render that would be the actual reflection, and you can mask out whatever isn’t reflected, leaving me with Only a perfect reflection of my object for adjusting in compositor or photoshop. (I’d like to render using layered exr for photoshop editing).
The trouble is, if the model is quite large, duplicating it could add quite a bit to the file size.
Is there another way to get Just the ground/wall/etc reflection?
Some might ask why not just set the mode to overlay in photoshop, or something along those lines. Yes, of course I would just use a blending mode to accomplish what I need…IF I were the one compositing. The object is to give someone else essentially 3 files. An rendered model. A shadow. And a reflection. If someone were to use those three things inside of something like Illustrator, they can adjust them independently, on top of spot colors without issue. I would Love it, if they knew how to use blending modes. But sadly, I can’t train them all. Trying to give them my photoshop files with layer comps is already confusing enough for them.
So, to get Just a reflection. Is there another way that is a bit more efficient?
The method I’m using might be ok if I could set a material to an entire collection, sort of like a material override. But I couldn’t find a way to do that either. I’m still fairly new at blender, but I’d like to move over work to it if I can make at least Something more efficient than my current workflow.