[Eric Lagman]

I'm not trying to belittle your efforts I was just saying how it was ment to work.....the point of having an angle map as a gradient is for occasions when the scratches are really too small to be visible, like they would be if you were using a bumpmap.

My mistake then. I thought you were insinuating that I was obsessed with anisotropic metal, and had to make everything out of it like a child who discovers his favorite color one day.

[Mihai]

No......that wasn't even directed at you, I just thought it was going to turn into a thread about anisotropy. It's a nice effect but certainly not necessary to make a good looking metallic material.

[Eric Lagman]

No......that wasn't even directed at you, I just thought it was going to turn into a thread about anisotropy. It's a nice effect but certainly not necessary to make a good looking metallic material.

Shouldnt this thread be about anisotropy? Again this is where I am confused. Is brushed metal not anisotropic. I must be a total idiot, or something. I think this is what is confusing everyone who is trying to use anisotropy.

[Mihai]

Yes, maybe we should cover anisotropy also, but I thought it was better to do in a separate thread. Maybe not. Anisotropy happens really when the scratches run in mostly the same direction. You can have brushed metal which isn't anisotropic.

[jonathan löwe]

mr lagman, those materials look damn good!!!

and thanks mihai, too

best regards
jona

[sandykoufax]

great stuff. thanks guys.

[Richard]

Mihai

Thanks mate for these tuts your putting together and the pics help here alot. I would add that for nobs like me a settings shot helps an untold amount!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm going to sound like a total nob here but sorry where do I find the IOR for aluminium? And when applied does this override the reflection colour settings?

Could someone share a scratch map to gain the effect of Brushed Al similar to Eric's? And what level of bump is most applicable?

I need to educate myself more about bump maps, I've tried creating a few but the results are always crap?

Mihai

I also ask this!!!!!!!!

Is it possible for these enlightenments you so graciously share with us be placed in the tutorials section? If one searches here for brushed aluminium the results can be staggering and so much related to out of hand discussion!

These tips are so useful to help me get started, seriously but they still require (and I'm really not trying to be selfish) searching reading, understanding, trialling and maybe still more trialling. I'm just I guess trying to save time and get the best and most correct info!!!!

I've been playing with Mxed for weeks and except for red plastic my results are well CRAP! And at the same time I'm going broke and my partner has left me due to a lack of attention and my recent hair loss!

And another point if a material like this is easily manipulated could I urge you to even post at times the MXM as this will give many what may be suitable as a seudo proceedural material, would it not? Most are after just a basis for exploration with some predictable outcome for a starter.

Sorry to reflect the discussions of your other recent thread, this is not for the want to hijack the thread and except for the first questions to help with this material, you need not reply to my other. Just food for thought!

Cheers and thanks again for these efforts and sorry to ask more of you (or is it plead for more of you), Richard!

[Eric Lagman]

Richard you can download the zip file with the scene and everything in it including the scratch map at the bottom of my earlier post..........

[rivoli]

where do I find the IOR for aluminium? And when applied does this override the reflection colour settings?

you can find ior files in the mat database folder, the path should look something like this:

C:\Next Limit\materials database\ior files\common

alluminium is al.ior, and yes, it does override reflectance, transmittance, attenuation...

[Mihai]

I think we'll move this to tutorials in a bit, I'd like to add some stuff about anisotropy because there's still a lot of confusion what type of maps to use, where to put them and when to use anisotropy vs a very fine bump map with scratches.

The bump used for a scratchmap usually needs to be pretty high rez, mine was 2048x2048. Bump setting was 3 I think. This depends how much contrast your map has. The higher contrast the stronger the bump will look.

[Sheik]

This wasn’t supposed to be about anisotropy, but these are some of my findings on brushed metals:

I was a bit confused by how anisotropy works on flat surfaces because in a previous test the flat parts looked just the same as if I would have used only roughness. It also looked like the direction of the UV map didn’t have an effect on the result. I would have expected the direction of the “directional reflection” would result in different colour depending on angle.
On this test I got a much better result probably because; I now didn’t use roughness+anisotropy (anisotropy is also roughness) and I have emitters and light angle setup so that I get clear highlights that are needed to make the effect clearly visible.

There is still surprisingly little difference from the angle of the UV map.
In the circle on the floor I used a scratch map instead of anisotropy. With a small scale in that scratch map the direction of the scratches aren’t clear eater, and both sides have the same colour, so the seam isn’t clearly visible. So the scratch map material works like the one with anisotropy, only scratches are bigger. I guess adding some roughness would make the colour the same as on the one with only anisotropy, but in general using only roughness, anisotropy or a scratch map is easiest to control.
Mihai, please correct me if I am wrong on something here so I don’t make things more confusing.
Sheik

[Eric Lagman]

Yeah this is what I struggled with. Anisotropy on flat surfaces looked just like using roughness. I thought I was doing something wrong.

I did a test with the same scene I used earlier just using the scratchmaps in the bump channel and not anisotropy strength. I did not like the results that much. Even at really low bump values .1etc the scratches looked like fairly deep gouges compared to when I put the maps in anisotropic strength channel. The first result looked more like mocroscopic scratches instead of harsh gouges. I will post images later today.

[Q2]

Hi Guys. Well I seem to NOT get it right here. I made the same material like you guys, but it always turns out very dark or nearly black in the preview window, even with the preview quality factor setting at 10. What am I doing wrong here?

Thanks!
Carsten

[jonathan löwe]

maybe your nd is to low...look at the "read this or die"-thread for metal it should be about 20 i guess....

jona

[Q2]

Hi Jonathan, thanks for the tip. The only thing that gets me thinking is, that when I use the metal from the basic vol. that NL provided the settings there use the Nd value of 1. Weired.

But I will try going up with my settings, keep you posted!

Carsten