heyas; hypothesis: irridescence is a sorta rainbow sparkly effect in highlight areas, so would a rainbow noise texture as a reflection map simulate this? exhibit a: zygote diskus (angel) fish with default texture (bottom) and same with light noise reflection map (top). the, uh, dumb lab assistant didn't write down the specs, but i think this was a less-than 50% strenth, multiplied through lights and colour. it seems to work best with mitch's spot photo-texture (a greyish fish with dark stripes, and an eye spot on the rear quarter). not sure if it is working well with other colours, as shown here. exhibit b: anton's peacock. on the right, normal; on the left, with a dark irridescence map, about 50%, multiply through lights only. applied to the body, and to both parts of the tail, but for some reason, i can't get it to show up on the tail, no matter what i do. the light area on the head looks pretty good, but i don't know if i like the dottyness appearing throughout the entire area. for further study: just what kind of mapping is poser using for reflection maps? i tried applying the default fish texture as a reflection map, to see what it did, but it didn't apply in the usual uv coordinate mode. what's up with that? try it at home: the light map is made in 'shop, throwing on some thick, gaussian noise (non-monochromatic), and the dark map is made by inverting the light map. these are 500x500 pixels. conclusion: i dunno, whaddya think?

The Peacock looks VERY good. Both head and chest areas are giving the effect well. The tail may be too flat a surface to reflect the light as you want. This is a problem in many 3D programs.....curved surfaces respond well to reflection mapping, but flat surfaces need more "fakery" to do it. I like the "dottyness" you refer to. I think it helps carry out the overall effect. It might get subduded somewhat if the bitmap was a higher resolution..but then again, you also might lose the entire effect. This is peachy, keen, cool, Blood!

heya; well, i tried it on a one-sided square, and a sphere, and the flat square worked fine. the reflection map seemed to be interfering with the transparency map, however... not sure what is up with that. :/

I didn't know any better about reflection maps and thought, what the hell, why can't I use a color picture in the reflection map area instead of a black and white one. Well, bloodsong, it works great. Actually some wonderful effects can be created using a color reflection map (I use web backs found on the net) and slight transparency of the material. Check out my picture in the Poser Gallery called "Some Do Not Die" the glowing fireballs in the eyes of the skull were done by placing a web back I found called Solar in the reflection map area; making the spheres about 50% transparent; and placing as a texture one of the pics out of the Magic effects download file in the Free stuff. I've also used this technique on the Zygote eagle to create an eagle that appears to be made of flame. Just haven't posted that pic yet because it was a test render, but if you want to see it just e-mail me and I'll send it along.

One of the things about Poser4 that disappointed me was that you can't load maps into the the highlight channel. If you could have rainbow highlights instead of a solid color that would be perfect. I do like your idea. Mabey instead of moise you might want to try a gradient rainbow at a low setting. or mabey overlay a gradient rainbow over the rainbow noise. Just an idea. Now you got me thinking. Keep us posted

Kay, I have another idea. Remember my post a couple days ago about multiple render layering for stills. What if you rendered the object with a different highlight color in each image and move the same lights just a little. The overlay them. I'm going to try it. I love puzzles.

heyas; allie, that was bothering me, too. i thought maybe 'multiply through lights' might put it in the highlight areas, but... there is still some visibility all over. and circular coordinates on the world! okay, that makes sense. do you have a sample of your coloured highlight irridescence? anton: have fun. :) let us know how it turns out! dream: hey! i think everybody would love to see an eagle made of flame. :) do you think you'll get it finished up and post a pic of it??

Yes, just finished it plus two a render or two of the Zygot Dragon textures I've been working on. I'm going to post them in the Poser Gallery now. Check them out and see what you think. I could do a closer render of the Firebird if you like. Just post here or e-mail me.

You can do this in 3D Max with falloff. The iridescence is a function of the angle between the surface normal and the line of sight.