Dull Reflections

[Streetwise]

I'm having an issue where I need the top of a desk to have more of a glass-like sheen to it, with more defined reflections.
I'm using a reflection map with Fresnel turned on, plus Phong to try to sharpen things up. Still, the top of the desk looks really milky.
I've attached a reference image for ultimately where I need to be.

Thanks.

[danio]

If it was me I'd first shoot for a mirror finish with no subtlety and then build necessary dullness\nuance from there.

I'd bet the problem is the map in your highlight glossy. It looks like it's having 100% impact (no blending) based on the lower part of your screenshot showing the map settings. But anyway, first thing to try is take that map out of the highlight glossy and move your refl. glossy to .97. Then if that doesn't do it possibly bump up the fresnel to 2.5 or 3.5? If you're not getting sharp, mirror like reflections at that point you must have something up with the geometry I'd guess...

The more complicated route would be do do a VRayBlend material to get a nice 'build' look.

Just my best guesses, hope it helps!

[joconnell]

Your material is too soft in the glossiness, the reference desk will have a layer of lacquer on it to make it more mirror like than your glossy setting will allow. Also the bitmap outside the window that's being reflected on the desk is far too dull for what the outside of a photographed room would be so it's not giving you enough brightness to reflect.

[Streetwise]

So it sounds like that a VRayBlend is the preferred way to go about getting a nice sheen to the surface? I've looked around for instruction on how to use that, but can't seem to find much in the way of adding clear coats. The other thing is that it looks like (on the reference photo) that when a more specular light hits the material, it tends to make it glow, almost iridescent like. I've tried self-illumination and that seems to help, but I wonder if the VRayBlend coating might be the key to it. That or perhaps a falloff map?

[joconnell]

What's happening is that you've got a really white room with a pretty dull garden outside the glass doors. The white room is reflecting on your blurry tabletop and washing it out and the garden outside isn't bright enough to really drive the reflections to give you any more burnt out values. Make your glossiness way lower so you can pick up some sharp detail (make a wee test cup object sitting on the table and try and match the amount of blurriness in it's reflection to that in your ref photo) and then heavily boost your bitmap being used in the garden image.

The problem here is the range of exposure in your render - if you were to shoot a photo of an indoor room being lit by the light coming in from outside, your room would look normal but the outdoors would be much much brighter by comparison, or if you exposed your photo for the garden outside correctly, the room would end up being much darker.

Grab yourself a camera and start shooting photos as reference to see what happens!