Material solution for textured gold
Today I am going to start a new tutorial series on creating Gold material. I have already selected two tutorials for this section, but I will add more in the future depending on your request. For this tutorial series I am using my own way of preparing textures and materials, which was built using most of the plus points I have extracted from dozens of tutorials I have referred.
For this tutorial I am going to use a simple plain object as my 3D model for simplicity. However you can use it for any kind of complex 3D model when you understand the necessary steps of this tutorial. You only need to unwrap the texture of the 3D model before starting steps of this tutorial. However, such steps are not including to this tutorial, but you can learn them easily by following my other tutorials.
You need to have basic knowledge on 3D max and Photoshop to go through this tutorial. As well as, some common sense and artistic skill will expand the quality of your end product. But don’t worry about them if you don’t have them. For this tutorial, I am using 3d Max 2010, but I am sure most of the steps will work well with the older versions. If you faced any problem, please let me know. Finally I am recommend to go through this tutorial once before applying it to complex 3D models.
Without further details let’s start the lesson.
Reset 3D max and go to Perspective viewport. Draw a plain using any dimension you like (I have used 100 x 50).
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Setup the environment
I think it will be more useful to setup the environment before going to make the material. That because the you can then directly render and see how the end-result looks like. In this section I am going to use an Environment Map and few lights, which will be help to give highlight points, shadows and reflections to the material.
You need to have HDRI type image to set as the background image (no matter you can use other common types of images, but we can have more advantages by setting a HDRI type image). If you don’t have HDRI type background image, you can find some images through internet easily.
To set the environment, press <8> to open the Environment and Effects dialog. Press the “None” button in the “Background” group, under the “Common Parameters” rollout and select Bitmap from the Material/Map browser.
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Select one of your HDRI and press Open button.
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Not like in other image types, when you press Open button another window will appear. This HDRI Load Settings window enables you to change some parameters. However, I am not going to teach you more on HDRI settings. Hope you will be able to sort it out. However if you don’t able to set the settings, you will be able to fine tune it later. But remember to note down the Liner value of White Point (you need it later).
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Before closing Environment and Effects window, press <M> to open Material Editor Window. Drag the set map from the Environment and Effects window to an unused material slot of Material Editor Window. Select Instance from Instance (Copy) Material dialog and press OK.
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Now you can close the Environment and Effects window, and the new material slot we have prepared enable us to change material settings using Material Editor. Go to Coordinates rollout of the new material and change the Mapping type to Spherical Environment.
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Scroll down and go to Output rollout, set the Liner value of White Point I have asked you to memorise as the RGB Level.
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Select unused material slot and click the Standard button just above the Shader Basic Parameters rollout.
Lighting and Rendering Setup
Place a Skylight and 2, 3 Omni lights around the plane with default settings. Unselect the Diffuse option under Advanced Effects for all the Omnis. You can change the positions and the Multiplier of the Omnis as you like.
Click <F10> to open the Render Setup dialog and go to Advanced Lighting tab. Set the Lighting plug-in under Select Advanced Lighting rollout to Light Tracer. Change Rays/Samples to 50 and Bounces to 1. However, it’s better if Rays/Samples are high. However it increases the rendering time. Therefore, start from lower Rays/Samples value and increase later.
Material Setup
Select an unused material slot (, change the name of the material to “gold”) and change the material type to Raytrace from Standard. Change the Diffuse colour to (221, 104, 0) and Reflect colour to (234, 150, 30). Change the Specular colour under Specular Highlight to (220, 172, 30). Set the Specular Level to 200 and Glossiness to 60. Apply the material to the plane we have modelled early.
Go to Perspective or camera view, and adjust the viewport until you can see the plane from it’s top (approximately). Render and see how it looks like. This is how my plane object looks like.
Because we haven’t apply any bump material to the material it act as a perfectly flat gold plate. Therefore you can see part of the environment map we have applied through the gold plate. Also you can see the Omni lights I have placed as yellow coloured spots. Now it’s time to fine-tune the lights’ positions and environment map.
Select the gold material, and go to Maps rollout, click the None button in front of the Bump and select Noise from Material/Map Browser.
Set the Size under Noise Parameters rollout to 1 (keep the other settings as they were).
Render and see (my one is given below).
If you are not interested on what you got, change the positions of the Omni and by offsetting the environment map. I have change my lighting and environment map until plane looks like below.
Hope you like what you got. Change the bump to map to get different surface finishes.
Rather than using Bump match to show the textured patterns of the surfaces, it can be used to show the unevenness of the surfaces of the real-world models. This is how it will be looks like when apply into 3d objects.
