Need help with HDR in blender

I am currently creating a scene with ice, and the environment is a HDR. My problem is that for some reason I cant get the ice to sit on the "floor" of the HDR, and I cant get it to cast a shadow or reflection on it. There are reflections on the ice though. This is my current setup, the only physical thing being the ice block. Can anyone help me?

 

I will try to do that, but what I am trying to achieve is this-
He seems to conveniently skip the part when he sets up the HDR. Skip to 2:05, I am even using the same HDR as him

 

Ohhh, so if I'm not mistaken that means that the glossy plane is reflecting the HDR, right? I feel like a total idiot, but thanks for your help

 

With your help, I finally was able to create my first scene with realistic lighting! I would like to thank you for this, and also here is the final render, with DOF. Im thinking of making it into an animation... Do you have any criticisms?

 

Ok I need help again with blender. Not so much an issue, but didn't want to make a new thread so this question can live here. Anyways I'm making a realistic render of a car and was wundering how to make a glossy surface that looks roughly like car paint. Does anyone have any existing node setups that I could perhaps steal, or build upon p? I know how nodes work, so a screenshot will suffice, also it's in an outdoor setting if that changes anything. Thanks in advance, ray

 

In Blender 2.79, there's a shader called the Principles harder, and I usually use that. It does all the normal PBR calculations, and you can set the paint to be a metallic, glossy red. That's what I do

 

TY for that haha, never thought of using that. But I have another quick q if you mind answering, what is the most effective way to preview materials? I find that having it rerender everytime I tweak a tiny value is probably not very effecient

 

There's a button (forgot which one, probably on one of my sheets) that lets you render a section of the screen, saving a lot of render time, but letting you preview the material.

 

Try using the 'rendered' viewport shader

 

Yeah that's what I've been doing, but my scene is reasonably complicated and I wanted to preview all the reflections and all, so it does take a while for the rendered viewport to give me something that is actually indicative of the final product

 

Press Ctrl+B and draw a box, then press Shift+Z. That makes it render only the box, resulting in a good preview, but much faster renders.

 

I think I should rename the thread to "carcrushers blender questions" anyways, I have a very broad question. Would it be possible to create a render like this in blender, and if so, how would the lighting be done? HDR or actual objects? I just don't see renders of this quality being done in blender, could be wrong tho

 

That looks like physical objects and light textures. Lots of post-processing I believe, though PP isn't my strong point.

 

Well this is what I made, I modelled a bodykit for this sls amg from free3d.com