CompuServe Messages

Terry, I think I know what you're talking about with the reflection problems. If you put a Reflection map on a flat object, you don't get much in the way of excitement. It always ends up looking pretty flat. I ran into this problem earlier this year when I modelled a factory interior with lots of I-beams. The client wanted them all to look shiny and new. I put REFMAP.GIF on them at around 50% with high shininess, to no avail. Then I hit on the idea of giving them a little bit of bumpiness to pick up the shine. I put CEMENT.CEL as a bump map at around 5% and put cylindrical mapping on each I-beam. I used six omni lights at low settings and played around with their positions. After some trial and error I got some very chromey-looking I-beams. I suggest you at least try using CEMENT.CEL on your object. You probably don't want bumps on your object, but in my case the object didn't really look all that bumpy, it just looked shiny and new. You can also draw your own reflection map in a paint program. Start with a black screen and draw white streaks on it. You can also try gold streaks if that's what you're after. A little experimentation is in order. I suggest you make a bunch of reflection maps with varying amounts of black and white, streaks and blobs etc. Make five or six and save them to different names. Then go to 3DS and make a material for each reflection map. Make six copies of your object and assign the materials, and render them all in one view. This will give you an idea of what direction to take. There are no magic answers, just sweat and persistence. <g> Michele