Legacy Ball

DEPRECATED. This shader is unsupported, but it may still get installed with Softimage to provide compatibility with older scenes that use it. It is recommended that you replace unsupported shaders in your scenes with equivalent shaders from the current Softimage shader library.

Shader Type: Environment (Legacy)

Output: Color (RGB) value

Reproduces environments using a highly reflective ball placed in the center of the environment (where you want most of the action to take place) and photographed from a number of positions. This effectively captures the whole environment.

To replicate this effect, you should take the images from a horizontal position using a telephoto lens. This is important because the shader makes the approximation that the ball is being pictured from infinitely far away. If you take more than one image, they should be distributed with equally separated angular positions. For example, if you want to have four images, take one at 0 degrees and the others at 90 degrees, 180 degrees, and 270 degrees. Once you digitize the images, you should crop them so that the perimeter of the ball just touches the edges of the image.