i am building a model on an satelite image of the terrain underneath. i want to use a seperate object on top of the river to capture reflections. i was trying to place a edit poly shape just above the satelite image and apply the matte shadow reflection material to it and just chech the box for the relfection but i can not get the object to be fully transparent but still show the reflections? it is occluding the satelite image.

any sugestions or ideas?

3ds Max Design 2010/11/12, 64bit, Boxx technologies, dual quad core 2.8, nvidia quadro 4000, 20GB Ram, use mental ray for rendering, windows XP pro 64bit

M/S/R is maybe not the best approach for this, if I understand your problem correctly. It is more for compositing purposes. You could try mapping the glossiness and specular level on the ground material, or maybe better, use a blend material, one of which is reflective. Either way, you will have to paint a B/W matte for the river.

i was starting to think that would be better. i just wanted to see if there was a way to use the matte shadow reflection material instead. thanks for the response.

3ds Max Design 2010/11/12, 64bit, Boxx technologies, dual quad core 2.8, nvidia quadro 4000, 20GB Ram, use mental ray for rendering, windows XP pro 64bit