Andrew Coppin wrote:
> Try as I might, I *cannot* get this to look metallic... *sighs* Tried
> playing with lighting, tried playing with different backgrounds, but I can't
> make it look shiny, and I can't make it look reflective!
> 
> Any suggestions? (I'm looking for a very highly-polished, very brilliant
> look.)

Here's some general tips:

In general, the base color for a silvery metal should be sort of a 
medium-dark gray. Iron might be a bit darker; aluminum a bit brighter.

The amount of reflection is up to you; for really shiny metal, use .5 or 
more, but less than 1 (you said you're using .8, which is fine, if 
slightly high; remember that 1 would be a physically perfect reflection, 
which even mirrors don't quite achieve). This should be constant 
reflection, not variable. If you use a metallic reflection, you may need 
to increase the amount of reflection to compensate for multiplication by 
the pigment. Depending on how dark your base color is, this can result 
in using base reflection values above 1.

The highlight should be strong, and fairly tight, but not super-tight; 
remember that you're not trying to reflect a point light (which is 
impossible, of course, since a point light has no volume), you're trying 
to simulate the reflection of a light which does have volume. For best 
results, set up your scene such that highlights appear brighter than 
reflections of light-colored objects, since light sources typically 
appear much brighter than the things they illuminate. (If monitors were 
somehow capable of displaying values greater than rgb 1, this wouldn't 
be an issue, but they aren't.)

Because shiny metal doesn't diffuse light as much as, say, a rubber 
ball, you'll need to reduce the amount of diffuse light coming from the 
object. This can be done in one of two ways: increasing brilliance 
(which will make parts of the object that should be reflecting most of 
their light away from the viewer appear darker) or reducing diffuse 
(which will make the whole thing darker, as though you'd used a darker 
base color). Increasing brilliance is probably more physically 
realistic, but I find that reducing diffuse, or employing a combination 
of both, produces a better looking metal IMO.

Finally, shiny metals derive much of their apparent reflectivity (as our 
eyes perceive it) from high-contrast environments. To put it another 
way, for something to look reflective, it should have a lot of dark bits 
and bright glinty bits. Instead of the environment you're using now, try 
using a sky and horizon, or put your object in a scene with brightly-lit 
areas and strong shadows, or something similar.

-Xplo

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