#Good gold!?
11 messages in this thread
Can anyone help me make a realistic shiny gold 3DS material? I want to
fly a cross that looks like a polished bar of gold. I've had more trouble
with this material than anything I've done to date, trying bitmaps, flats
reflecting moving shapes, moving lights, etc. I've gotten some nice yellow
plastics and such, but great gold eludes me.
JKJ (closet alchemist)
Mr. J –
Try using "brass valley" — it looks like gold to me and if you tweak it a
bit I think you'll get what you need.
Alec Jason
Mr. AJ –
Thanks for the "brass valley" suggestion. By brightening and yellowing
the specular, and playing with the shininess and percentage of reflection
map, I've come closer to that gold in my mind. I owe you one – could I
build you a gun or something? <g>
JKJ
Mr. JKJ-
Build me a gun . . . ?
My kinda guy! Acually, I'm in need of some good gun models. What do have
around the house? Anything in .45 ACP, 9mm, or 7.62×39 (AK-47) ?
Alec Jason
A 9mm S&W handgun, 30 cal. carbine, 30/30, couple of shotguns & 22's (and a
really good slingshot!) I've got a friend with a stockpile with some
military copies (AR-16s or something? I'm not a connoisseur, I can check.
He probably can get anything.) You have any drawings or a need for
anything in particular? Right now I'm doing a space-shuttle, a really nice
spinning atom, and an animated cross. Something destructive might round
that out nicely! Be good clean fun.
JKJ (what, me sleep?)
Mr. JKJ-
Build me a gun . . . ?
My kinda guy! Acually, I'm in need of some good gun models. What do have
around the house? Anything in .45 ACP, 9mm, or 7.62×39 (AK-47) ?
Alec Jason
John, there are a couple of important things you need to do to get really
good gold materials.
1) Make sure that the specular color is a lighter shade of the primary
color in the gold reflection map that you use.
2) Your reflection map should optimally be a 24-bit image with lots of gold
shades in it. Lumena, Tips, and Fractal Painter are all great for creating
excellent blurry gradient reflection maps.
3) If you need the material to work well on a flat surface, use a flat
mirror reflection map on it, and then apply the gold map to an object
floating in front of the reflective surface. The gold map object needs to
be 1-sided, so the camera can't see it as it's facing towards the
reflective surface. You can then move the gold map object during the
animation and get an animated gold "gleam" that way. (experiment with a
cubic auto reflect map for different effects — especially if you want a
slightly blurry gold)
– G
Wow! Great tips for gold! Thanks, Gary.
The best I've come up with until today has been series of 9 flat mirror
maps (my geometry is interesting!) with an modified GOLD.GIF mapped inside
a hemisphere BEHIND the camera, two white fill-in panels angled away on
either side of my object, and a moving omni light to bounce the gleam off
the back hemisphere. As the cross flies in, I get some fairly realistic
'gleams". Sounds like I was on the right track but with your suggestions I
can probably simplify somewhat!
My biggest problem was with the color. With Alec's suggestion I've
improved that a lot. I'll try folding in a 24-bit image if I can make one.
Maybe I'll check the CD…
JKJ
P.S. Put my vote in for a book full of tips like this!
I'm glad you got something out of them, John. It sure sounds like you're
on the right track. Note that using a 24-bit source reflection map is much
more effective than using an 8-bit map. I can't think of anything on the
CD-ROM that would be as nice as just making a jump of 24-bit gradients with
a 24-bit paint program, but you could start with valley.tga or a similar
image and work from there (blowing away the non-gold tones).
– G
John,
Take the "valley" pic into a 24-bit paint program, sample a nice big swatch
of the goldish trees and such, and stamp them over _most_ of the sky and
mountains. Add a little reflection blur and there ya have it! Instant gold!
This worked great for me…check the brass bed in 7th GUEST when it comes
out…
Gary's suggestions were, as usuall great too…
Alan Iglesias
Thanks Alan, I'll try that today.
Can't wait to see the 7th… expect to get the inside scoop here as to how
to be the first on the block to check it out?
JKJ