Glossy bitmap material

[hereagain]

I have been all over this site trying to figure out how to make bitmap materials render with glossiness. I have a metal panel material I am using for as an exterior cladding, but no matter what settings i use in highlight glossiness or reflective glossiness, the material never looks "shiny"; it is always flat. The areas receiving direct light become burned out, but it never looks as it is supposed to. Any suggestions?

[AJLynn]

Did you turn on reflection by making its color swatch not black?

 

If you're trying to get started using Vray, I can highly recommend the 2 DVD-ROMs on Global Illumination from Gnomon Workshop, which cover a lot of Vray topics: http://cgarchitect.vismasters.com/catalog/viewcategory.aspx?category_path=3_50

[hereagain]

AJ,

 

Yea, I did remember to do that; went from just below black to light grey. It lightened the material up, but it never looked like metal in sunlight should look. I already have both of the Gnomon DVD's, which are great, I just don't remember anything being mentioned about this particular topic. I have been working with Vray on and off for a while now, and I have always had an issue with this. Does anyone know of any tutorials where this is demonstrated? I have seen plenty of blurbs about descriptions of the settings, but never anything that goes into the modifying of a basic bitmap shader to make it appear glossy in Vray. Thanks for the help.

[AJLynn]

Here's a good web site:

 

http://www.vray-materials.de/

 

You can find materials you like, then load them and look at how their settings work.

 

BTW, it's not a case of making a bitmap shader glossy. You start with a Vray material, and add maps to channels. I think what you're talking about is a bitmap for diffuse color - to get the glossiness you'd add reflection and set up glossiness. But with metal panel materials, usually what I'd do, unless it has a pattern apinted on it, is make the diffuse either a color or some subtle procedural map, and put the panel's detailing in bump or opacity. Then if it has a polished reflection, glossiness=1 and if it's got a blurry reflection glossiness is less than 1. If it's not constant, glossiness can have a map (black=0, white=1 and shades in between have corresponding values). Usually there would be a fresnel reflection, but the IOR could be something higher than normal (which would make it "less" fresnel).