Recreating "radial shininess" on a watch face

[leigh]

This effect is called anisotropy. It is caused by the machining of the metal, which creates minute grooves in the surface that trap the reflection of light in certain directions. It takes the shape you describe on a watch because the machining goes in a circular shape, trapping the reflection of local light sources in that fashion.

In LightWave you can get this effect using the BRDF shader. If you read the section on the shader in the manual, it describes the effect and how to use the shader, which can be used to create both spiral and regular anisotropy.

The only problem with the BRDF shader in LightWave is that it affects the specularity, when in actual fact it should really affect the reflection channel (specularity is a fake version of reflection that saves rendering time). However, Worley's G2 shader can create reflection anisotropy.

[HomelessJack]

Thanks! The BRDF shader is exactly what I was looking for.

My next question is, to come back to my watch, when I create a radial anisotropic highlight on a surface, the center of the highlight moves around whenever I tilt or move the surface its on. How can I get the highlight's center to stay in the same place, while the highlight itself rotates and changes its thickness depending on the angle its viewed from?

[leigh]

Errr I can't say I've ever encountered that problem :hmm: The center *should* stay in place... Unfortunately the problem with using shaders in LightWave is that you can't have them interact with things like gradients, that are great for changing the appearance of surface attributes according to angles, etc. You're limited solely to the options within the Shaders panel.

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