3D Sword Chest [with reflection effect]

[ianmage1]

I usually don't share techniques like this, but I thought this was somewhat noteworthy, so here I am...

I was working on my film and needed to make a 3D "sword chest" prop. The chest started off as a boring box shape, so I decided to try giving it a reflection. I came up with a masking technique that gave this effect to the chest. Basically, I took two png images (a starry night background and a castle), which were given different negative z axis values and masked to a "reflective" vector layer.

Here's a demonstration: [sorry about the somewhat-choppy capture...]


Here's a smooth, rendered test of the sword chest:


I've used reflections a lot in my film thus far, but not in this way. I hope I explained my technique well enough.
IanMage1

[synthsin75]

Nice technique.

[Danimal]

Rather ingenious and it looks great!

[lwaxana]

Thanks for sharing this technique!