Recommendation: NSDT scene editor helps you quickly build 3D application scenes that can be redeveloped
Option 1. Flat mirror material
Step 1
First, we need a scene containing a mirrored object and one or more mirrored objects. You can download the scene used in this tutorial here , or use your own scene and objects. For the first mirror option, we assign the mirror material to the object MirrorPlane, which, as the name suggests, is just a plane.
Step 2
Press the M key to open the Material Editor (or choose Material Editor from the Render menu) and rename the first material to Mirror.
Drag the material onto the MirrorPlane object in the scene to assign it.
Step 3
Click the map button (the small blank square) next to the material's diffuse color. From the Material/Map Browser that opens, select the Planar Mirror material.
Step 4
If you used the example scene, press C to change to the camera's view, then render the scene (press F9). Objects in front of the mirror should now appear in the mirror. If you are using your own scene, make sure that the object actually exists in the mirror's reflected view. Also make sure you have one or more light sources in the scene that also correctly illuminate the backside of the mirrored object. If some objects appear black in the mirror, try adjusting the light's near falloff and far falloff settings
Step 5
The plane mirror material provides some options to change the look of the reflected image. By default, the Blur setting is enabled and set to 1.0. You can lower this value for sharper reflections, or increase it to blur reflections more significantly.
Distortion The built-in noise parameter allows you to distort the reflected image, for example this works well with a piece of mirror foil that is not perfectly flat (even though the mirror object still has to be flat, in particular its faces need to be coplanar).
Fractal, Phase 8.0, Size 5.0, Level 3.0:
Turbulence, Phase 5.0, Size 2.0, Level 4.0:
Option 2. Highly reflective ray tracing materials
Unlike the Flat Mirror material option, the second option uses a highly reflective raytraced material, suitable for flat surfaces and other more complex models. It's more resource intensive, but it's not as picky as flat mirror materials when it comes to lighting and reflecting off other reflective surfaces.
Step 1 In the material editor
select an empty slot and name it RTmirror. Drag the material onto the MirrorPlane object in the scene to assign it.
Step 2
Click on the Diffuse color and change it to black (change the Ambient color to black too).
Step 3 Open the Textures section, click the Reflection slot, and
select Ray Tracing from the Material/Map Browser that opens.
If you click the "Background" button in the material editor, you can immediately see that the material now fully reflects the colored checkered background.
Step 4
Press F9 to render the scene again. As you can see, the reflection quality is higher compared to flat mirror materials, for example correctly reflecting light in glass.
Another benefit of using a ray traced material as a reflection is the ability to reflect the reflection of another mirror, something that cannot be done with a flat mirror material. If you're using face-to-face mirrors, it might be wise to limit the number of reflection bounces, to reduce the render time of this already more resource-intensive option. This mirror material is also suitable for chromed objects.
Option 3. Mental Ray Mirror Material
Mental Ray has its own mirror material that can be used to quickly create mirrors.
Step 1 To use it, first change the renderer to psych ray.
Step 2 Press M to open the material editor, select the unused slot, and rename it to MRmirror. Assigns a material to a mirror plane object in the scene.
Step 3 Click on the button labeled "Standard" from the opened Material/Map Browser. Select AutodeskMirror from the Mental Ray section and press the OK button.
The only setting provided by step 4 is the tint color. Press F9 to render the scene and the mirror should reflect the scene again.
This concludes our mirroring material tutorial, happy mirroring!
Original Link: Create Realistic Mirror Material in 3ds Max (mvrlink.com)