How to create a metal shader

[RAMWolff]

So I'm in Poser 11. I released a nice set of basic shaders over at the 'Rosity freebie section found here:

Basic Shader Pack for Poser

Next step is to make some metallic shaders. What I'm doing and why I'm doing this is to gain knowledge of how things work in the Material room in Poser BUT I do NOT like the reflect node so was hoping for another way around getting a nice metallic shader built!

Any help in understanding this better?

Thanks so much!

Richard

 

[caisson]

I like to use the Physical Surface root node. Set Metallic to 1, then the reflections will be coloured by whatever is in the Colour bit. The appearance of the reflections will be affected by any bump or normal map, but also by the Roughness. A low value like 0.05 will give tight and bright highlights with sharp reflections, a high value like 0.9 will make the highlights much softer and spread out, and the reflections will be very blurry. Once you start using maps or procedurals as well you can get a lot of different looks quite easily.

Superfly as I don't really use Firefly any more (it works, just doesn't look as good) -

 

[RAMWolff]

Thank you so much. OK. I'll go that route. Same question over at 'Rosity and the person ignored that I don't care for the reflect node and posted what I already knew! LOL Every little bit helps but there is just something about that node that just seems "off" to me. This looks more like what I'm wanting to create.

 

[seachnasaigh]

Late to the party, but this is what I start with for metals; ks_microfacet for Firefly, PhysicalSurface root set to metallic for Superfly.

Metals depend on the glossy settings, so give those a few samples and bounces:

 

[RAMWolff]

Thank you so so much! Yea, Physical Surface is my go too these days but I did run into some issues with the metallic with some of the shaders I made. I used Ohki's base and then went from there but then had to add a map to get the hilites just right.

PS Hilites is how us hairdressers spell out that. It's easier and on a busy set of books doesn't take up as much room as Highlights.