> 1.  Can anyone give me any tips on the way to produce a plastic looking
> surface.  I've found plenty of metals, but plastics seem to escape me!

Metals tend to tint reflections with their own colour, whereas plastics
don't. In the finish block you can use the "metallic" keyword, "metallic 1"
represents metals, "metallic 0" represents more plastic.
See "6.7.3 Finish" in the 3.5 docs.

> 2.  I need to make the icons fit with the XP specification, lit from the
top
> left, but with ambient lighting to the front from the right.  Top left is
no
> problem, but whatever I try with lights from the front tends to either
wash
> the object out completely, or to make it look a dull flat colour.

Agin read more about finish and also lighting.  If they are a dull flat
colour, I would tend to think you are using ambient in your finish. I prefer
to set ambinet to 0 in my finishes (ie, not use it at all).  You should also
play with the diffuse value.  As for lighting, look at attenutaion "6.6.6
Attenuation" and try adjusting the brightness of the light.

Other than that, some scene examples might be helpful to identify any
particular problems you are having.

-tgq

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