Howdy, as noted in another thread, I'm pretty new to all of this stuff. I like to think I've come a pretty decent way thus far, but I'm wondering what some of you do to get rid of the damn plastic look. It doesn't happen all of the time, but sometimes it seems unavoidable. I tend to like the look of the "infinite" lights over the "spot" lights, though not always. However, the infinite lights seem to give the plastic look often. So what's the best way of getting around it? Minor angle adjustments with the cameras? Changing the intensity of the lights? Color? Editing the texture(s)? Any suggestions would be much appreciated. :)

Forgot to say that I'm not looking for something that'll make everything look "real," but rather just want to reduce the plasticity (or would that be plasticness?) of the images without having to do a ton of post work. Some is fine, but not a ton (for both post work and plastic).

The plastic look is usually from the highlight setting and color, you'll find them in the menu where you load textures. The different model parts have individual colors and setting. You can do a lot of nice efx if you learn how to use highlight control. Staale

Some rules of thumb: Smooth plastics and painted surfaces have highlights that are small, well defined and the same color as the light around them. Textured plastic and paint is the same but with larger highlights. Smooth metal has small highlights that share the same color as the metal. Textured metal is the same but with larger highlights. Skin has highlights that are so diffused as to be nonexistent. Either set your highlight color to black, or set it to the color of the skin and then diffuse it with a hi-rez bump map. -SMT

Staale got it. You just need to turn the "Highlight" color to black, which removes the highlight, that tends to make the figure look plasticky. Things like skin, unless wet, don't really have any sheen to them, so they look best and less plastic without a highlight. If you need certian highlights (like the sheen on the nose and chin) you can add those to the texture map. Hope this helps. James

Thanks for the suggestions. I'll give that that stuff a whirl later and see how things turn out. Gotta take a final first though. Thanks again! :)

I always find the "Highlight" slider somewhat irritating. Small values mean smaller, sharper and brighter(!) highlights. With higher values the highlights are greater but more dull and with less sharper edges. For skin I use a value of 90 % (min.) and a very dark grey (almost black) as highlight colour. - wal

Been trying out a couple of the things suggested, and with a combination of it all, it's turning out much better. I think the texture I'm using on the body is part of the problem (it's a somewhat light texture), but I'm working around it. Thanks to all you! And wal, ya, that made a big difference. Kicked it up to about 95% and I like the look a lot more. :)