We'd set up the Fresnel2 shader as follows.
Now, remember what this will do - polygons perfectly perpendicular to the camera (the 0 angle position) will be red and polygons at a 90 degree angle will be blue. As polygons turn from 0 degrees to 90 degrees, they will gradually change color between red and blue (that's purple, for those of you who are color blind.)
Still having trouble picturing it?
The following example shows the interface (again) and a QuickTime movie that shows the effect of the Fresnel2 shader at different degrees of rotation. It was created by surfacing a single polygon with the settings shown on the left, and then rotating that polygon 90 degrees, over 90 frames. The animation was rendered, and then the angle numbers were added to make clear how this actually works.
Interface showing 2 color Fresnel effect
The Results
To make it really clear, feel free to step through the frames - it transitions from red (facing us at angle 0) to blue (90 degrees - not that we can actually see the polygon at 90 degrees.
Now you got it.
Let's add a few more colors at different positions. We'll click ON on the angle 20 Position and set its color value to yellow. (R-255, G-255, B-0). Then we'll turn on position 40, but change its Position value to 45 degrees and make its color green.(Check the interface if you can't figure out how to make green.) Finally, we'll change position 60 degrees to a light blue. The results might look like this.
Interface showing 5 color Fresnel effect
The Results
And THAT is the basic idea...
You can apply this effect using almost any surface attributes or combination of surface attributes. You dissolve the Fresnel effect, so it applies over LightWave surface textures. Fresnel2 adds a tremendous amount of day to day surfacing possibilites, not to mention a lot of 'special effects' uses.
