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In Maya there is only one way to create mirror, that is by using ray tracing.

1. Create a plane for the mirror and some other object (lets say a sphere) to be reflected in it.

2. Switch to rendering mode, click Lightning/Shading menu and Assign New Material > Phong, attribute editor is opened automatically.

3. In the Specular Shading parameter rollout change reflectivity to 1.

4. Now select plane by clicking in on it in viewport, and choose newly created material (phong1) from Lightning/Shading > Assign New Material.

5. Add some material to sphere also.

6. Now add an point light to scene, and make sure it does not fall directly on the mirror, else mirror will look foggy.

7. Raytracing is off by default in Maya to enable it go to Windows > Rendering Editors > Render Globals. Browse to Raytracing Quality  and enable raytracing. You can also change number of reflections and refractions there.

8. Done

Example: image, mb 

Note: if you open image, mirror looks too dark and definitely its doesn't looks real. It is because there is no object in background. There is some hint in Maya documentation for overcoming this but right now am not able to correct it. So current workaround is to use a large plane in background or simply make an indoor scene.

Troubleshooting

1. If mirror is too dark and only partial reflections are visible then probably you haven’t added any light in scene.

2. If mirror appears too bright it’s probably because some light is falling directly on mirror.

   Lab1: Raytracing

Mirrors: