got this pretty heart in free stuff:) trying to get it ruby heart and rest diamond i think ruby is just about right, what you think? but i cant get diamind to show right, help?>_> seems like problem with specularity but everything i change for spec doesnt seem to be doing much so dunno :S

accually the diamond on the heart part looks close.... just those white bumps around it >_>

perhaps if you can do something with the transparency? (Know how to do it in Bryce, but that's no help..;), maybe up the reflectivity, if that's not mutually exclusive..better answers coming after this one..;)

Is that the Heart of Ocean necklace? I'm not 100% sure here and I can't locate the prop to test, but if my memory serves me correctly, I think I had to reverse normals (using the grouping tool) in one of the material groupings in order for it to render properly?

ya it is heart of ocean

Sorry if I've just added further confusion. I've just found the heart of ocean... and that wasn't the prop I was thinking of. It's actually a naval barbell prop that I was thinking of! Normal mistake to make ;)

Transparency would definitely help both the diamonds and the ruby--neither stone is solid-colored. Which version of Poser are you using? Poser 5 has a transluceny node which may actually be better than the transparency. I wish someone would create a set of Poser 5 materials for gemstones that look realistic.

if transparency is set to anything other than 0 then the ruby is gone, all thats left is the specularity area which is ghosty used refraction and reflection only to make it the best glass ive seen is refraction/reflection only with transparency set to 0, and gems are basicly just the same thing as glass, just different values ya im using P5, just cant seem to get material right

You almost need a faceted reflection map to give the illusion of being cut but I do not know where to find one. Check around in your reflection maps for one called diamonds. I'm not sure what set mine came with but I have attached that to the reflection map and to the diffuse map with so-so results. I posted a wishing well message for someone to make a set of Poser 5 gemstone materials.

Yeah, you'd need some map to give the illusion of facets, otherwise, you can get the gem model is a cabachon cut.

Stuck in a render or I'd test this before I post, but in P5 with Firefly renderer, you could perhaps turn off smoothing for the central stone and see if that affects the rendering of reflections from its surface (turning its polygons into facets).

Attached Link: http://www.3dlapidary.com/HTML/Stones1.htm

There is a Poser4 diamond prop on this site's page (kindly provided by Robin Miller) which has a image map of the facets...which can probably be easily converted to any shape if you have something like Photoshop or PhotoPaint etc. You may have to do some tweaking in P5 for the tranparency tho.

...forgot to say, it's at the bottom of the page... And yes, definitely 'unsmooth' the model. Poser and many other rendering programs tend to smooth things automatically, 'cause they're oriented to organic-looking models. Sharp edged facets, though, are necessary for cut gems.

Thanks, Rosemaryr! That is the reflection map I used. I plugged the refection map in as both a texture and a reflection map and adjusted the colors for the type of stone. I even tried using a list of refraction indicies for real gemstones but I gave up.