Adjusting mirrors

[Layer One]

Hello,
I'm having trouble getting the mirror effect that I need.
The 'Mirrored Glass' in the materials editor is too good. I'm looking for a less reflective and maybe darker mirror. If there was a setting called 'reflectivity' that would be what I'd use, but there isn't.
I've tried using mirror with an overlay of glass that I've tried varying the opacity of but they just come out as black. I've played with the Alpha setting and the IOR settings but they don't get what I'm after. Please see attached of what I have that needs toning down in the mirror department.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you.

Render 2 test.jpg (372.45 KiB) Viewed 6533 times

[Chris]

IOR and shininess will probably have the most effect on reflectivity. The mirror template has a very high shininess level (as I recall) and you can turn that down pretty far. Also make sure the IOR is within reasonable range (like 1-2).

[Fletch]

If you are laying a piece of glass over a mirror in your sketchup model, first make surethat the model is built correctly, that there are no reversed faces, second, make sure that you set the IOR for both materials to be identical. 1.5 is reasonable.

[Layer One]

Thanks you both for your replies.

Chris - within the materials editor, both the mirror presets have the shininess value (set at 128) greyed out and uneditable - any idea how to get it active?

Fletch - I'll give that a go - do you mean that the glass and mirror should both just be 2D surfaces faces pointing the same way?

Thanks again!

Adam

[Chris]

Right, sorry. I forgot the mirror was a glass material.

A couple things to try. Change the color of the material in the TWL editor to be dark gray or black. Then reduce the IOR to 2 or 3. This might get you what you are looking for. What is behind the doors? Is it open to the sky/background?

[Fletch]

for the glass in these doors I would use only one plane for the glass and I would set the glass to thin glass material (architectural thin glass) I would increase the IOR to be 2.2 or greater. Increasing IOR is what increases reflectivity. The color of the glass controls opacity, white is clear. Medium grey would be dark glass. IOR of 5 would be extremely reflective glass I would imagine.