How do you make an object look really shiny, basically I want a gold box to go
into a picture and all Im achieving is a dull brown colour (with the gold
pigment)? I have tried phong and finish methods but I am clearly doing something
wrong!

Post a reply to this message

"colaroid" <col### [at] hotmailcom> wrote:
> How do you make an object look really shiny, basically I want a gold box to go
> into a picture and all Im achieving is a dull brown colour (with the gold
> pigment)? I have tried phong and finish methods but I am clearly doing something
> wrong!

Try using specular and/or reflection in your finish block, e.g.:

finish {
   specular 1 roughness 0.01
   reflection {0, 0.25 fresnel on} conserve_energy
}

(And if using reflection make sure you have something in your environment to
actually reflect)

Post a reply to this message

colaroid schrieb:
> How do you make an object look really shiny, basically I want a gold box to go
> into a picture and all Im achieving is a dull brown colour (with the gold
> pigment)? I have tried phong and finish methods but I am clearly doing something
> wrong!

Reflection!

What you really need for shiny things is something they can reflect. 
Highlights alone won't do (and they're particularly poor with objects 
that don't have any curved surfaces or beveled edges).

Post a reply to this message

colaroid <col### [at] hotmailcom> wrote:
> How do you make an object look really shiny, basically I want a gold box to go
> into a picture and all Im achieving is a dull brown colour (with the gold
> pigment)? I have tried phong and finish methods but I am clearly doing something
> wrong!

  There's a trick with specular highlights which most people don't realize:
Use a very large specular setting (larger than 1, eg. 3 or 4) and adjust
roughness until it looks good (usually try to make the highlights smaller
in size). This works especially good for glass surfaces. You can combine
this with a more moderate larger phong highlight as necessary (depending on
how plastic you want it to look).

  The ultimate technique to get realistic shiny surfaces is, however, to use
a HDRI environment image (with megapov or pov 3.7) and some amount of
reflection on the object finish.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

colaroid wrote:
> How do you make an object look really shiny, basically I want a gold box to go
> into a picture and all Im achieving is a dull brown colour (with the gold
> pigment)? I have tried phong and finish methods but I am clearly doing something
> wrong!
> 

Where's your Light?
Bad lighting can cause all kind of problems.

Post a reply to this message

> How do you make an object look really shiny, basically I want a gold box to go
> into a picture and all Im achieving is a dull brown colour (with the gold
> pigment)? I have tried phong and finish methods but I am clearly doing something
> wrong!
> 
> 
> 

Some way to do that:

Adding some reflection.
With the reflection, you need something to reflect, so, you need to add 
some environment.

Carefull placement of the light(s). Works with...

Use phong (with phong_size) ou specular (with roughness) highlight.
Good with rounded shapes, much less with mostly flat surfaces and sharp 
edges. Don't work with ambient "lights".

For metallic textures, add the keyword "metallic" in the finish.
metallic will colour the highlight the colour of your pigment.
Most metals have roughly constent reflection, independent on the angle: 
use a single component reflection. metallic in the reflection block will 
tint the reflected things acording to the pigment.
sample: reflection{0.3 metallic}

Experiment with "briliance". It takes a float value. Any positive value 
is possible. "Standard" metallic textures mostly have brillance larger 
than 1.



Alain

Post a reply to this message

Alain <aze### [at] qwertyorg> wrote:

> > How do you make an object look really shiny, basically I want a gold box to go
> > into a picture and all Im achieving is a dull brown colour (with the gold
> > pigment)? I have tried phong and finish methods but I am clearly doing something
> > wrong!
> >
> >
> >
>
> Some way to do that:
>
> Adding some reflection.
> With the reflection, you need something to reflect, so, you need to add
> some environment.
>
> Carefull placement of the light(s). Works with...
>
> Use phong (with phong_size) ou specular (with roughness) highlight.
> Good with rounded shapes, much less with mostly flat surfaces and sharp
> edges. Don't work with ambient "lights".
>
> For metallic textures, add the keyword "metallic" in the finish.
> metallic will colour the highlight the colour of your pigment.
> Most metals have roughly constent reflection, independent on the angle:
> use a single component reflection. metallic in the reflection block will
> tint the reflected things acording to the pigment.
> sample: reflection{0.3 metallic}
>
> Experiment with "briliance". It takes a float value. Any positive value
> is possible. "Standard" metallic textures mostly have brillance larger
> than 1.
>
>
>
> Alain




Thanks for all the answers, I did think it was possibly due to a lack of things
to reflect so I put an extra plane in, I think I need real objects there. I will
have a go at all of your suggestions.

Post a reply to this message

> Alain <aze### [at] qwertyorg> wrote:

>>> How do you make an object look really shiny, basically I want a gold box to go
>>> into a picture and all Im achieving is a dull brown colour (with the gold
>>> pigment)? I have tried phong and finish methods but I am clearly doing something
>>> wrong!
>>>
>>>
>>>
>> Some way to do that:
>>
>> Adding some reflection.
>> With the reflection, you need something to reflect, so, you need to add
>> some environment.
>>
>> Carefull placement of the light(s). Works with...
>>
>> Use phong (with phong_size) ou specular (with roughness) highlight.
>> Good with rounded shapes, much less with mostly flat surfaces and sharp
>> edges. Don't work with ambient "lights".
>>
>> For metallic textures, add the keyword "metallic" in the finish.
>> metallic will colour the highlight the colour of your pigment.
>> Most metals have roughly constent reflection, independent on the angle:
>> use a single component reflection. metallic in the reflection block will
>> tint the reflected things acording to the pigment.
>> sample: reflection{0.3 metallic}
>>
>> Experiment with "briliance". It takes a float value. Any positive value
>> is possible. "Standard" metallic textures mostly have brillance larger
>> than 1.
>>
>>
>>
>> Alain
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Thanks for all the answers, I did think it was possibly due to a lack of things
> to reflect so I put an extra plane in, I think I need real objects there. I will
> have a go at all of your suggestions.
> 
> 
If you use a simple plane, don't use a simple pigment, but a texture. 
That texture can be scaled somewhat large or small depending on your 
taste and the particularty of your main object.


Alain

Post a reply to this message