Brushed Metal Test

[Donald2B]

Hi all,

This is just an attempt to making a good looking brushed metal material with Vray. I haven't been using vray long, so any crits and comments would be VERY welcomed!!

Let me know what you think.

[Syclone1]

Nice work, what did you use to create the material?

-dave

[Donald2B]

Well, there was a LOT of trial and error involved.

Basically, I created a chrome vray material and then put a blurnoise map for the bumpmap and then adjusted the settings until it looked good.

I have been trying to make a good looking brushed metal. I have been visiting Neil Blevin's site for inspiration and reading through all of his education materials. Still not as nice as his tea kettle but it is getting there.

~Troy

[GoncaloP]

did you try to use anisotropic glossi reflections too?

Gonçalo

[asango]

wiro has some nice non-vray material tutorials...

http://www.secondreality.ch/

[DaForce]

it would be good to see it reflecting a more real environment, and see if it stands up to the test then. Maybe a HDRI

Looks great by the way!!

[Donald2B]

GoncaloP: I haven't gotten around to trying the anistropic glossy reflections yet...that is the path I am going to start down next.

Asango: Yeah, he does have some really nice stuff on there, just none of the materials really came across as being brushed though.

DaForce: I am still pretty new to vray and I have never ventured into the world of HDRI. Are there any free HDRI images that I can get to do some tests with?

Thanks for all of the comments and suggestions!!

~Troy

[asango]

the default hdri resource
http://www.debevec.org/Probes/

there are a quite a few others, but i dont have my bookmarks on this 'puter.

one crit on the material as you have it now is the size of the bump map.
i think its just too big, espically on the cyl.

otherwise its looking good.

[DaForce]

start here (as above)
http://www.debevec.org/Probes/

I usually convert them first in hdrshop so that they can be used in a spherical environment, look around the net on a tut on how to convert a spherical / light probe hdri to a latitude/longitude hdri , then just a use VrayHDRI map in the environment reflection slot and choose the hdri you have converted and select spherical environment.

If you want i can post an already converted HDRI for you to try.

Ahh heck, here it is...use the instructions above and use this HDRI (already converted)
www.apex.net.au/~daforce/kitchen.hdr (1.2mb)

[marc]

Looks nice!
What did you use as reflection map? Reminds me of a map Neil Blevins used for a Brazil anisotropic ref test... Is it just a gradint ramp in the environment slot?

cheers

marc

[Donald2B]

Marc: You are exactly right. It is just a gradient map but I applied it to a sphere with the normals inverted for the environment. Don't ask me why I did it that way instead of just putting it into the environment slot...just like to create more work for myself!

When I have some free time...hopefully today, I will be able to do some more test with some HDRI reflections and lighting. A prelim test I did yesterday turned out really well! If I get a chance I will post it.

Thanks all!!

[Donald2B]

Here is an updated test using HDRI lighting and Reflections. It is getting closer. Still needs some tweaking though. Thanks for all of the help. This is my first time getting into an external rendering package for Max. All those years of low poly modeling for games doesn't improve your rendering skills.



Crits welcomed.

[cocolas]

looks really nice!! the only thing that needs a little tweaking is the fact that the anisotropic reflections look a bit grainy/coarse especially on the cylinder....otherwise it's great...
can you share it w/ us??

great work!

paul.

[Donald2B]

cocolas: As soon as I feel that that this material is polished and ready to go, I will post it for everyone to use. I have learned a great deal about vray and materials in general working on this material.

BUT, I have run into another strange problem. I was in a hurry the other day trying to kick out a couple of these renders, so I sent it to the DR farm and it didn't render the same. Are there certain features of VRay that are not Distributed Renderable? I can post up images if you like?

I am using, HDRI lighting and HDRI Reflections.
Vray Material with reflectance at .8 and Anistropic .9

Any hints would be greatly appreciated.

[marc]

hmm... Have all your computers access to the hdri's or maps in general? Maybe it's just that... But post the images, I think it's easier then to see what differences you mean.

marc