Glass and Metal could look better, but how?

[nikmills]

I'd like to make things look better in the glass and brushed stainless department. I know LW can do it. But I'm coming from formZ where you just click "glass" and you have "okay" glass. I'd like to really use LWs great rendering engine even if I model in Z. So can anyone tell me what steps to take to get this beveled glass top to look better? The legs aren't perfect either.
Thanks!

[nikmills]

I hope the picture comes through this time.

[ingo]

Hi nik,

just use the preset glass that comes with LW, that is always a good start. And choose a reflection map for the glass and the legs.

[Max Wolf]

what you could do is make an air layer for the glass
copy the glass part of you table then flip the ploygons rename the surface and ad it to you hole object

for the surface use the same surface as the glass.

..... this should do it i will put a pick of my glass table later

[nikmills]

I am confused by what you mean by "air layer". And where is there a "glass preset"? Thanks

[Max Wolf]

can you go to your modeler and coply the object you are useing as your glass
then if you can in formZ flip the ploygons. rename the surface of the fliped glass part
now add it to you table... make sure it is in the same place as the first glass (do not clear out the first glass part)
then if you can in z go to your layout.

tell me what can you do for surfaces?? can you tell me what it look like if any??

[ingo]

If you have the texturing paneel open than you find on the left menu the button presets, that opens the preset tab where you can store texture settings for later use.

The air polygon thingy is only useful if you need real refraction. Since LW is only a polygon renderer and knows nothing of solids this is a method to get refractions correct.

[nikmills]

I think there's a little misunderstanding. To make myself clear: I am working in Lightwave. The posted image is LW. I want to render in LW. formZ is a good modeler, but the renderer is very basic. It's not terrible, but it's nothing like LW. I am rendering in LW only.

Presets. I remember fiddling with this before, how do I reload presets? Mine are empty. Is there really something there called "glass". I almost can't believe it. That'd be great! I can't find the reload function.

Is there a tutorial on glass table tops?

Thanks for all your help.
Nikjavascript:smilie(':)')

[Randog]

Perhaps working through the supplied tutorials and reading the manuals are in order.

-Randy

[Max Wolf]

i found one in a old lW book called inside light wave 5.5

[mattclary]

If your presets are missing, re-install LightWave.

[Niklas]

Hey Nik! Hows it going?

I think that what you need is for the glass to reflect something, and have some refraction if you are not using it.

When i only need a "studio" reflection, i like to take any HDRI image i can find, desaturate it and add some Full Precision blur to it in the Image Editor tab. Or use the Studio presets from Eki Halkka's Skygen in the TextureEnvironment plugin.
Then i give the glass some reflection, and when you render you should have some reflections going across the glass surface helping to break up the uniformity of it

[nikmills]

Alright Niklas, there's my man! Now I can get somewhere for real. Check out nikmills.com and take a look at the video link. I've been having a ball with discreet's combustion 2. Just one movie so far. Check it out. Nice to see you, thanks again! Your new stuff is amazing. That purple teapot knocks me out!

[Dodgy]

Let's start off with some basic settings...

Metal:

diffusion:20 or so
spec:100 to 200 (dependant on if you use colour highlights)
gloss:20
ref:30 or so
colour highlights: 100 or so if you're making a coloured metal.

relection maps to suit...

It also helps if you apply Corona as an image filter plugin, and set it to use spec value as the key value. Then you get a nice glow.

[Matt]

regarding refraction, can't you also just make your surface double-sided rather than copying the polys and flipping them?

[Max Wolf]

i did that matt butt it did not look as well
the filled part of the glass has no reflection.. while the other one does.

[d8ed]

you cant just make it double sided.. the whole point of the inside and outside polygons is that air and glass have different refractions. 1.5 or similar for glass and 1.0 for your standard air. so a ray is coming in at 1.0, hits the glass goes to 1.5, then comes out the other side back at 1.0 and there's your refraction.

for different refraction indices check the LW manual.

also caustics help in making your surface look realistic. so do nice edges and lighting etc..