Hi folks, I need to make an imag of a trophy for a small project at work. I need some advice on how to get a nice golden trophy look. I have a nice gold texture, but it relies a lot on the reflections of what is around it (like most metalic, reflective textures I guess). After rendering however, I am going to remove the trophy form its background, so for the end result it doesnt matter what i put around the trophy in the scene. Anyway, I would love some advice on how to get a realistic golden trophy effect. Thanks everyone, Max

Attached Link: http://www.maxon-computer.com/deepshade/shader/shaders/mineral/011/011.html

Some of the best-looking metals I've seen are on the c4d deepshade site but I think they can be adapted for use in Carrara. I've attached a link to one of the gold&chrome shaders. You could use the c4d demo to see how they're put together (or just use the texture maps that come along with the shader). Real World Metals (available in this marketplace) also has some nice metal shaders for Carrara.

Your comment about the reflections is very important for realistic metallic textures. I would suggest using a picture of the scene your going to insert the trophy into being put into the reflection part of the shader to add the realistic reflection. Maybe with a mixer of a yellow/gold color added. Good luck! :>

Thanks guys. I am using shaders from the Real World Metals collection, and Ill try your suggestion bluetone and modify the reflection part of the shader with an image of my background. Cheers, Max

what I do is multiply a high reflection value with a colour. Works well. :)

ahh, well this depends... I would use a texture mapping multiplied by a colour if there is no surrounding environment. However, if the object is within a scene, I would rather the metallic object to reflect its surroundings (this is more realistic). so I would use a value multiplied by the colour then.

Actually, as far as your plan to modify the reflection channel of the shader, well, that would be odd. What I think would work better for you is to put an image of your setting in the background of your Carrara project. You can put a solid color (black or a chroma-key color, depending on how you're planning on removing the trophy from the BG) in the backDROP. The metal texture of the trophy will reflect all the stuff in the background, giving you that interactive, interesting light look. One of the two parents of Carrara, Infini-D had exactly such a feature designed for chrome work. It was a t-map that was put in Infini-D's equivalent to the background that looked like strange noodles, but it reflected in the chrome surfaces and looked great. HTH. - Dex