CShake schrieb:
> As for the realism, the inside of the bell is too reflective but I 
> haven't been able to find a good way to make it dull/unpolished but yet 
> still look like clean metal. My attempts at micro and macro normals 
> (using variations of the textures that Ive posted in the metals.inc 
> thread a while ago) didn't work well, and there are very fine lines 
> between completely black, way-too-bright, and fuzzy.

Some ideas to try:

- As the bell's texture lives primarily from reflecting the light probe, 
and nothing else does, blurring the probe instead of the texture surface 
could to the trick.

- Add a bit of deformation to the bell, using pertubed normals (some 
subtle bumps), to "break" the overly-ideal look of the bell.

- Use an averaged texture, with the major component as-is and another 
one with significant micro normal pertubations, to simulate tiny 
scratches in an otherwise well-polished surface.

- Maybe add a coat-of-arms or something, etched into the outside of the 
bell.


You should also do something to the belt, to break up the "sterility". 
Some leather-like crackle normals (with an offset value) maybe.

The clapper suffers from not having bevelled edges, maybe a cylindrical 
shaft would do a lot better.


> Render time 2:06:31 on a quad-core 2.6GHz, beta33.

Appears a bit long to me. Then again, I'm not too familiar with 
rendering times of spline-based shapes.

 > Minor focal blur,
> radiosity with decreased brightness, and area light used.

I think it shows that you decreased radiosity brightness: It should be 
stronger. I can't exactly pinpoint why, but maybe it's the way the bell 
and the handle appear to be lit totally differently.

(just my $0.02)


 > I think the
> line up the middle of the inside of the bell is a seam in the HDR probe 
> (which is St.Peter's Basilica from Paul Debevec's gallery), I will 
> rotate it once I have more changes to make.

Given the symmetry of that line, I'm pretty sure it's not in the light 
probe, but the bell reflecting its own rim. Which in turn indicates that 
the reflection is a bit too strong.

If you're using them right, the Devebec light probes are perfectly seamless.

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