Trying to make the sparkle come out from silver material?

[Kinetic99]

Hello and thank you for your time,

I have some objects with a silver material on it. Shiny silver material is easy enough to produce but I'm just trying to capture more glossiness, more highlight pings, more sparkle from the silver. Is it a question of material settings or is it all about lighting?

I guess the question is, are there settings or tricks to pop out more sparkle and highlights from glossy silver objects?

BTW, my light source is an 32bit HDRI map of a couple of flat white circle with a black background. Its an image of a lighting scene used in photography.

An I idea I have to apply some kind of material over the silver material like a thin clear lacquer material that would sparkle up the silver - so there would be some refraction going on over of the silver material.

Not sure, I was hoping for better ideas that probably wont kill my render times.
K

[Joelaff]

It is a combination of both, as well as post processing (we do it the halite tool and custom tools in Fusion).

You might try some small, but bright lights that only affect reflection. Bump maps with small nicks. Overall noise bump maps with a big scale, bump low amplitude to get some variance. Variance in the reflection gloss channel can look nice as well.

Then you bloom these highlights out in the post, using possibly only the reflection channel to drive the blooms.

It is all very scene dependent though. Post pics for better feedback.

[Kinetic99]

yeah,know what you mean. Its makes sense but thanks for the voice of reason! I think my lighting could use more variance. Or like what you said, variety in reflections in gloss. Also I might try to render with a sharpening filter like Mitchel to bring out some more crispness.

It is a combination of both, as well as post processing (we do it the halite tool and custom tools in Fusion).

You might try some small, but bright lights that only affect reflection. Bump maps with small nicks. Overall noise bump maps with a big scale, bump low amplitude to get some variance. Variance in the reflection gloss channel can look nice as well.

Then you bloom these highlights out in the post, using possibly only the reflection channel to drive the blooms.

It is all very scene dependent though. Post pics for better feedback.

[Deflaminis]

Check out the "align highlight" tool in max. Helps to put those highlights in just the right place if rotating an HDRI gets too annoying.

[Kinetic99]

thanks! will check it out soon