metallic earth

[Ravennome]

Mucho Reflections, thats the key.

[aYs]

well, reflection is not that important
i did a quick test in lightwave
with gradients for color, glossiness and reflection

http://www.ays-arts.de/temp/me01.jpg
http://www.ays-arts.de/temp/me02.gif
http://www.ays-arts.de/temp/me03.gif
http://www.ays-arts.de/temp/me04.gif

i don't know if this works in your software

bye

[snot_nose]

zainlars: i already used reflections, but i don't think that there is "mucho" reflections in space.

aYs:that's almost exactly how i wanted to my earth to look like.
only without the round shadow in the middle, is it from the glossiness mapping?
and also i want to make mine warmer.

did you use radial for your gradients? or linear?
did you use the "level" of reflection mapping or the "color" relfection mapping?
what's the glosiness mapping for????

i tried to play with your settings in max, but still, i couldn't get that silver color that you got there on your ball.:shrug:

[aYs]

that's almost exactly how i wanted to my earth to look like.
only without the round shadow in the middle, is it from the glossiness mapping?
i guess that's important for the metallic look
but i am not quite sure what you are talking about ;)

did you use radial for your gradients? or linear?
well that's 3dmax stuff i don't know


did you use the "level" of reflection mapping or the "color" relfection mapping?
there's no reflection at all (almost)
i just used the reflection for the surrounding stars but it's not necessary for the metallic look


what's the glosiness mapping for????
the glossiness determines how hard a highlight is
i used a gradient to create a "hardness-falloff"
this creates a soft highlight around the hard spot in the middle depending on the incidence angle


i tried to play with your settings in max, but still, i couldn't get that silver color that you got there on your ball.
maybe someone could "translate" these settings to 3dsmax?

bye

[Ravennome]

What I meant is that it key for most metal surfaces to have some degree of reflection, it depends on what kind of metal your going for. And what the scale is. Usually some form of reflection is nessesary. In the darkness a chrome metal sphere is black just like its in enviornment. Even with you light it, its still defiened by the enviornment. So in space you wouldn't see that much of a metal globe, except for the reflections of the stars and the specularity. outside of that you have to go for a metal that is lest reflective and more diffuse, like steal that hasn't been polished. Heres one that I did in MAX
http://www.cavecreekcabin.com/RVCFtest/pix/metalearth.jpg

If you want warmth think about how the sun would light it and reflect in it. And think about how the the fall off between night and day would occur on the planet's surface. And then add some faint abstract reflection maps, something to define the surface.


In max you can fake a lot of this with Gradients, noise and falloff. Think about the areas that would be glossy, the oceans for instance could be slightly glossier than say the land. Use the bump map to generate a gloss map, and the diffuse bad, then at some nose to break it up.

[snot_nose]

zainlars:
can you describe your material?

did you use a standard material with a reflection mapping instead of raytrace material?
did you apply a gradient to your reflection and blurred it?
did you use the diffuse mapping?
...

and thanx for all the help :beer:

[Ravennome]

Okay snot, here's a pseudo break down of the material (from what I can remember). I'm at work right now, so I don't have access to the actuall interface otherwise I would show you.

Its a basic blinn shader, I would like to try a raytrace shader just because I could get more options and shader parameters in it. But this seems to work just fine.

As for the grads and the shading, it works like this > The Diffuse color is a Gradient Ramp based on Lighting (i.e. one light in the scene)

I then grabbed the Specular Level and set it to use a Gradient Ramp with a Falloff shader. I actually didn't have to do this but I liked the effect it yeilded.

Then I slid another Gradient Ramp into the Glossiness parameter, and piped a Falloff shader into it, this controlled the highlight, its decay and its shape.

Finally I used a Raytraced reflection map with a Falloff to constrain the level of reflection in areas. You could use a Reflect map instead of raytracing here, but I was tired of tweaking settings at this point.

Then to just pump it up a notch I piped the highlights in the render through a glow post effect to give it an aura.

Hope this helps, rock on :airguitar

[snot_nose]

how's this one? does it look like a warm metal?

somehow i still can't get that SILVER color. i tried everything and the only way i could get a silver look on my materials is by using the "famous" lakerem map in the reflection mapping in the standard material and to blur it all the way.
but this one doesn't really fit into my metal earth.

i hope i don't annoy you with this basic thing, but could you maybe still post me the interface, or the mat when you get home?

[Ravennome]

No Prob snot, but instead of showing you all the parameters, I'm just going to show you how the shader network is set up. I changed things up a bit to give it a warmer look. I also switched it to a raytrace material to get a few more options.
http://www.cavecreekcabin.com/RVCFtest/pix/metalearth2.jpg


http://www.cavecreekcabin.com/RVCFtest/pix/ME_pipes.gif

Don't worry about annoying me, its good to be able to help. I hope this does the trick, outside of uploading the shader to the site I don't know what to do.

-O

out

[snot_nose]

what kind of fall off did you use over there? did you use a shadow/light ?

[snot_nose]

just in case you've been wondering what is it for?
it will be a very short and simple animation, but educational.

by the way, what kind of glow did you use?? is it the video post glow?

[snot_nose]

oops.. :D

[AAbel]

That shader would look alot better if you built up the highlight with a few layers of highlights.

[snot_nose]

more layers??
i already used 2 layers of highlight using the shellac material, and one of them have a gradient map applied to it.
how would i add more layers? with the composite material, or another shellac inside the material?
or maybe i should just highlight more what i already have.

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