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3D Studio Max
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Metal
Surfaces by Arild Wiro
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Metal, generic, non-raytraced -
a quickly rendered, matt, generic metal
Metal, steel, raytraced - highly
reflective, polished steel
Metal, aluminium, raytraced -
blurry, reflective aluminium
Metal, rusty / weathered - rusty,
scratched metal
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Metal,
generic, non-raytraced
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| This
material is nice for a quick and easily
rendered metal look to smaller or unimportant
objects
I
did not use the Metal or Strauss shaders
but rather the Oren-Nayer-Blinn (ONB)
because I wanted a better control over
highlights.
Basically
it's all just about decreasing Glossiness
to 0-10 and upping the Specular to 75
and up on a very dark material (here
grey 128). This results in very broad
but shiny highlights with a quick falloff
to deep, dark shadow areas.
To vary the structure, I also used a
scratchy texturemap in the Specular
slot.
Just
by changing Diffuse color and specularitites
you should be able to create a wide
range of metals.
The
included scratchmap is a low-res version
of the one I use and is also included
in the matlib
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Metal,
steel, raytraced
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often see newbies asking how to make chrome
or other reflective metals. Rather than
give the same answer every time, I decided
to put up this tutorial.
I
used the Blinn shader rather than Metal
on a raytrace material because I like
the better control over highlights.
A black or very dark blue in the Diffuse
channel will prevent the metal from
looking washed-out and dull.
Specular Level is shot up to way above
100 (378 here) and Glossiness to around
50, resulting in sharp and bright highlights.
I
used a mask with falloff in the Reflect
channel to have the metal reflect more
with increasing perpendicularity to
the viewer. This is a real-life phenomenon
that occures to any shiny surface; a
ceramic coffee mug will actually reflect
along the sides perpendiular to you.
(in fact almost any surface will change
its look depending on the angle it's
seen from). For chrome, add full Reflect.
Silver has a slightly lighter Diffuse
color and is less reflective than chrome.
Most
importantly though is the surrounding
area of the metal. If you use a reflective
material, you will of course need something
to reflect! This is the actual secret
behind chrome, silver or steel. Not
the material itself, but its environment.
I
usually use an environment map for general
reflections and add in boxes or cylinders
of black and white for specific accents.
Placing these objects is a matter of
trial-and-error and loads of testrenders
as it's not possible to see it in realtime.
A trick is to place a lightsource in
the scene and then use Place Highlight
(Align rollout) on your reflective object.
Then you put your black or white objects
where the light ends up.
To
speed up raytracing I strongly recommend
everyone to use Blur's RayFX raytrace
and shadow plugins. The image above
shows lines in the reflections which
is a known bug in the version I used,
but it only occures sometimes.
I
added a small scene without lightsources
as an example for environmental reflections
download
matlib (5kb)
download
scene - R3.x (27kb)
get
RayFX
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Metal,
aluminium, raytraced
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I
used the Oren-Nayer-Blinn (ONB) shader
rather than Metal on a raytrace material
because I like the better control over
highlights. ONB also gave it a softer
look.
A light grey in Diffuse is fine for aluminium
as it will lighten up and wash out the
reflections.
Specular
Level is shot up to 190 and Glossiness
way down to 0-5, resulting in broad
but bright highlights.
Using
a mask with falloff in the Reflect channel
to have the metal reflect more with
increasing perpendicularity to the viewer
would add realism, but isn't that necessary
since it will be blurred anyway.
In
the Raytracer Controls rollout I used
the Multiresolution Adaptive Antialiaser
and upped its Blur/Defocus to 2 (Offset),
4 (Aspect), 0,5 (Defocus) and 1 (DF
aspect).
As
with all reflective materials, the surrounding
area is most important. If you use a
reflective material, you will of course
need something to reflect!
I
usually use an environment map for general
reflections and add in boxes or cylinders
of black and white for specific accents.
Placing these objects is a matter of
trial-and-error and loads of testrenders
as it's not possible to see it in realtime.
A trick is to place a lightsource in
the scene and then use Place Highlight
(Align rollout) on your reflective object.
Then you put your black or white objects
where the light ends up.
To
speed up raytracing I strongly recommend
everyone to use Blur's RayFX raytrace
and shadow plugins.
The
included scratchmap is a low-res version
of the one I use and also included in
the matlib.
I also added a small scene without lightsources
as an example for environmental reflections.
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Metal,
rusty / weathered
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| Corroding
metal is no big trick. The most important
thing is to use your Diffuse textures
or procedurals in the specularity slots
as well, since the shinyness has to vary
over the surface. I often use the very
same textures in Diffuse, specularities
and Bump and just darken, lighten or contrast
them more using Color Correct in MAX.
I
used two materials here, one overall,
tileable, rusty map and one for clean
metal. I then mixed these together using
a scratchy texture. It's a good thing
to mix tileable maps with others using
noise-, smoke-, dirt- or other procedurals
or texturemaps. This will prevent repeated
patterns and give the surface a varied
appearance.
Having
different maps for rust, metal, dirt
and other weathered effects and then
mix them together using masks will ease
corrections later.
The
maps below are low-res versions of the
rust- and scratchmap I use and are also
included in the matlib
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