Making a metal like material
 

I've been experimenting with blinn and phong, to try and create a metal like material. Something which is silver in colour and a little reflective.

The colours just don't look correct. Anyone know how to make one - and also, is there some kind of guide as to what parameters can be used on a material (specularity etc) to simulate different types of surface (in a similar way that you can consult a refractive index for refractivity)?

cheers,

gubar

hmmm...
 

Go to highend3d.com and download a metal shader. Load it and take a look at how it's made. Look at the inputs, outputs, bumpmaps, textures etc. Sometimes you got to dissect things to find out how they work. It's usually what I do with other people's rigs, models and shaders to get a better understanding of how they created it.

follow djknucklez1´s advice but 1 thing I can tell -

blurry reflection. this is a very important aspect. reflections of metals are blurry most time, exept chrome or something. bumpmaps and texturemaps help a lot but as soon as you make the reflections blurry you´ll notice a big difference.

good luck!

The way to create a metal texture is to use a blinn and leave the color mapped to a dark value (even the dark grey) and change the color of the Specular Color and then change the Eccentricity value to get the specular highlight you need.

Thanks for the replies folks. Haven't had a chance to try them yet but all sound like solid starting points, blurry reflections, the use of colour/specular colour and looking at pre-made shaders.

cheers,

gubar