Icon Shading

[mswanson]

I'm interested in achieving a look similar to that in the attached image. I am getting close playing with reflection values and the BESM shader, but it is really just trial and error. I've hit the wall as far as getting much further and was hoping someone might help clue me in.

Is a "cell" shader a decent approach, if so, any idea as to what number of zones and what colors to use? Is there a better way in Lightwave, or am I fooling myself into thinking I can render this, and need to focus on "post" work in Photoshop?

[Mylenium]

Well, from what I know, most of this fancy Apple-ish stuff is done the hard way (or easy way depending on point of view) in Photoshop. There are several actions for it floating around the web. I even seem to recall a special plugin or Java applet for just creating buttons and icons. Personally I too would chose PS. If you do it in 3D it's just too time consuming to get the lighting and surfaces right (assuming you only need a few buttons/ Icons).

Mylenium

[UnCommonGrafx]

Sadly,
I am doing it mswanson's way and like it. But I am finding it ...tedious and long winded such that I am starting to rely on other tools for these processes.
I think anything not in lw would be the answer for lots of that stuff as you would have to rewrite all kinds of code to achieve that in LW. That or comping and creative uses of alpha maps...

Any painting app that has programmability would be my suggestion. That way, figure it out once then make an infinite amount of files slightly different for your level of variety.

[HowardM]

have you tried modelling the logo very round, then using some gradients like incidence angle and refraction...also readup on car lighting, the way they use big white cards to get the nice top light....
this can be done in lw, maybe not exact but not hard to get it close...

[jimnokc]

The book, Adobe Photoshop 7 One-Click Wow, has a few actions that duplicate this look. In fact, just glancing thru the book I found three variants on the blue "plastic" look.