3DS Material Question

[Creative Inc]

I was wondering if anyone new some good material settings for ship hulls. I keep playing with them, but I'm never satisfied with my results.
Below are two images: The first, it the one most of you have seen. It has my default material settings. The second image has a new set of material settings. I would like your opinion on which looks better or which mostly resembles the movies...

In my opinion, they suck and thus I must continue to strive for perfection, however, if anyone knows any good settings, please let me know.
Thanks.

[DJ Curtis]

first one looks way better imo.

[tiqhud]

I must agree the 1st does look best

[RhVaurek]

 I also think that the first one looks more accurate for phaser chargeing.

[Legacy]

Yeap, first one looks better.
Since they started using CG models for the movies, they added a really strong metallic effect to the enterprise hull, instead of the plastic look from the studio models.

I think your first one looks pretty good, perhaps what's hitting it is actually the lighting not the materials.
A good lighting does 80% of the job in a render.

[Nighthawk]

Anisotropic material.
250 specular level
0 anisotropy
0 glossiness
0,0,0 ambient
0,0,0, diffuse
80,80,80 specular

for Diffuse settings (diffuse color and diffuse level), bitmap slot with "whatever_glow.tga" (disable alpha)
for Specular settings:
     Specular level: whatever_specular.tga
     Specular color: whatever_glow.tga (disable alpha)

Glossiness: whatever_specular.tga
Self-illumination: Output slot with whatever_glow.tga. increase the output to ~400%

you can speculate with the diffuse and specular level percentage to get a desired effect, but leave the other settings as they are.
these are the same settings you told me to use but with a few tweaks

I agree with Legacy: lighting is very important in a render.

[Creative Inc]

Yeah... Perhaps my default settings are alright. I'll have to experiment with the lighting some more. I'm at work at the moment and I have my home computer rendering a small scene at 720p. I hope it turns out well.

As for glows: I tried creating an animation with a nebula like the one in the pictures above... however, on every frame, the nebula changed orientation. It was never the same twice, which made it really hard to use.
Does anyone have an idea for an animated nebula using glows? I did disable everything relating to motion in the glow settings but no avail. The particles used wern't moving either.

Anyway, I'll be home in like 4 hours, so ill post my scene setup and perhaps the final render as well

[Nighthawk]

Does anyone have an idea for an animated nebula using glows? I did disable everything relating to motion in the glow settings but no avail. The particles used wern't moving either.

a nebula? you mean a gaseous entity?
particles should work. use the Mist template as start, then add a space warp like wind to make them move. I saw a tutorial using Reactor where they used a fan to move the smoke trail of a cigarette.
just let me find the file.....

EDIT: see? a frame using those ^^ materials, with strong lighting. this one preceeds inmediately the sequence with the Intrepid and the Sabre I showed in my thread.

[Legacy]

Sorry, but i spotted some stuff i think you may need to know:

Anisotropic material.
(...)
0 anisotropy

If you use 0 anisotropy there?s no point in use an anisotropic material, simply because it'll work exactly as blinn.

250 specular level
(...)
80,80,80 specular
(...)
for Specular settings:
     Specular level: whatever_specular.tga
     Specular color: whatever_glow.tga (disable alpha)

As soon as you use a specular level texture, the value in the specular level tab (250) is discarded as max starts using the texture as a grayscale reference for the level.
Also, you're reflecting a gray as specular (80,80,80), that?s something not usual either on reality or renders.

Self-illumination: Output slot with whatever_glow.tga. increase the output to ~400%

I don't usually go over 100% here, but it all depends on the render engine you're using. I use vray most of the time, so i just need to do 100% to make it emit light as if it were real lighten.

Just some notes.

As for glows: I tried creating an animation with a nebula like the one in the pictures above... however, on every frame, the nebula changed orientation. It was never the same twice, which made it really hard to use.
Does anyone have an idea for an animated nebula using glows? I did disable everything relating to motion in the glow settings but no avail. The particles used wern't moving either.

Are you using a noise material? If so, noises are animated by nature. A highly animated noise will make it look like a TV out of the air, a slowly animated one may turn out as a slowly moving nebula.
Hmm.. if you?re using particles, they are hard to predict... perhaps if you use a smoke FX.

[Nighthawk]

I don't want to quote by parts, so from start to end:

1- I used anisotropic material because it allows me so set the levels by maps.

2- 250 will eventually override any "white" areas in the specular texture (in this case the CG sovereign, which is a bit gray, not completely white.) and boost them enough to look white. this affects the whole Specular looking. you can boost them independently in either specular level or specular color, if you need to compensate.
also, it gives me a big margin where I can move if I need to edit the color curve, either inverting, boosting or smoothing it. it's a matter of knowing what you have and where you want to get with it. if you use standard settings and you don't get the effect you want, it's time to improvise.

3- using these settings:
    RGB output: Alpha
    Mono output: RGB output
    Premultiplied alpha: Off
    Alpha Source: Image Alpha

400% will boost it enough so you can see clearly see it in dark spaces. on a side note, if you want real lighting, you need an output of Glow(Lume). these will project light over any nearby object. but this sometimes bothers me as I need to remap some textures or even cut away new groups, so I used the alternative way.

[Legacy]

I don't want to quote by parts, so from start to end:

I like it by parts if you don't mind ;-)

1- I used anisotropic material because it allows me so set the levels by maps.

hmm.. levels can be set (a single one) by map at blinn mapping. Anisotrophic materials only change to blinn is that they can create specularity that is assymetric in up to 2 channels.

2- 250 will eventually override any "white" areas in the specular texture (in this case the CG sovereign, which is a bit gray, not completely white.) and boost them enough to look white. this affects the whole Specular looking. you can boost them independently in either specular level or specular color, if you need to compensate.
also, it gives me a big margin where I can move if I need to edit the color curve, either inverting, boosting or smoothing it. it's a matter of knowing what you have and where you want to get with it. if you use standard settings and you don't get the effect you want, it's time to improvise.

Hmm, well, i still think it?s a lot, for a nice metal shading, usually a set of 60 with 20 glossiness does the job (i render that for photorealistic 3d landscape at work)
You need to use the dark gray you're using, because the specularity is set to be too high, so everything will "wash up" to a flat white surface.

3- using these settings:
    RGB output: Alpha
    Mono output: RGB output
    Premultiplied alpha: Off
    Alpha Source: Image Alpha

400% will boost it enough so you can see clearly see it in dark spaces. on a side note, if you want real lighting, you need an output of Glow(Lume). these will project light over any nearby object. but this sometimes bothers me as I need to remap some textures or even cut away new groups, so I used the alternative way.

Actually glow effects won't light the surface, but create a halo around the surface (like BC does).
For lighting the surface surroundings you need a renderer that consider light generator objects and indirect lighting (like vray does), yet, glow effects do the job nicely in most situations.

Also, there?s a way to do glows based on a alpha channel mask i use on my renders that will avoid the need of any cutting or object separation.

[Nighthawk]

Actually glow effects won't light the surface, but create a halo around the surface (like BC does).
For lighting the surface surroundings you need a renderer that consider light generator objects and indirect lighting (like vray does), yet, glow effects do the job nicely in most situations.

?.?
and what have I just said....?

in MentalRay, using Glow materials you light the surface they're applied over.

[Creative Inc]

Alrighty. Here's the link to the animation. It uses Xvid and is 26mb @ 720p.
I think the material settings work ok for this situation. The nebula is nothing more then a plane placed some distance away with the image of the nebula on it. The opacity map seems to have worked really well.
http://rapidshare.com/files/35252329/AroundSov.avi.html

Edit: Oh, and the bussards are not animated, I'm working on it though.

[Nighthawk]

http://rapidshare.com/files/35252329/AroundSov.avi.html

not bad at all......

the blinkers are not THAT big, tho. and the blue nacelles are supposed to be blue, not white. what setting on glow did you use?