I think there are a lot of good sword models but it always seems the textures that come with it all make them look like grey stone rather then metal. Anyways in this case basically using the default texture that loads with the model and including a screen shot of its material settings.

As far as a my shader skills go basically I really no nothing more then what the basic are diffuse, specular, ambient, reflect, bump displacement etc just not sure if I can do anything to adjust them to make the defualt texture that loads into a shiney sword instead of one that looks like its blade is made of stone.

thanks for any tips you might be able to give.

Well, if you want them to reflect (like a mirror) then you are probably going to have to add a reflection node and make sure raytracing has enough bounces.  The swords in movies tend to be good reflectors, particularly once you add CGI to them.  You also might want to look at bagginsbill's chrome shaders and reduce the effect a tad.

Add a reflect node.

Make sure at least one light is raytrace enabled, and that you have at least two bounces selected for your raytrace render. Ought to work like a charm. (Can you guess I've been down this road?)

wow lots of good advice thanks :) I will give them a try. I seen baggs post and shader stuff and tried to follow them, it very hard for me to follow cause I dont know enough about shaders he is truely a god when it comes to shadders.

But going to try some of the others that where suggested and post my results one other questions does it matter what type of lights I am using or can I use any random light set I might have ?

Make sure at least one light is set to raytrasce.

any light will work BUT if you are using raytraced reflections the angles from light to sword to camera , or light to object to sword to camera are critical. If the sword is at the wrong angle you wont see the reflection.

This is where a reflection map would work regardless. Just plug an image map node into the reflection input.

This is using basicwiz settings. I put two of the same swords in her hand the one in her left hand is the default and the right hand the one I modified the settings on.

I do see a bit of reflection now but not the end result I want, I guess I was looking for a more of a silver type reflection where as this appears to be whiting out i guess the word im looking for. again might have to do with the light set up. I am basically using a DM light set, with the front light the only light with raytrace shadows on its an directional light too.

next post will post the material settings so maybe you see something to make better.

going to try it with a simpler light set up and see what happens next.

Basicwiz's setup is a perfect mirror. This means it has NO light of its own - it only shows the light of things around it - the world.

Your world is empty.

Therefore the world assumes the color WHITE because you set that color in the Reflect "Background" color - that is what color the world is when there is nothing in the world.

It does not set the blade color - Basicwiz wrote in the screen shot that it does. It doesn't. It defines what color the missing parts of the world are.

Now - a perfect mirror is invisible and boring if the world around it is empty. This is where you want to use either:

1. A Sphere_Map node connected to an image

2. My Environment Sphere with a 360 degree image in it.

Try a blue tint in the specular color.

Blue specular tint won't help the sword is white because the world is white. The specular is only activated by reflecting a light source. That isn't what we see here.

Yep I understand Thanks

yes i know my world is empty you dont have to rub it in. lol j/k But I did think of that and was about to try to add some stuff in my scene to see what happens just not sure where to load it or if I load a whole say DM prop set since I have a lot of those if that would make a diffrence.

Quote - Now - a perfect mirror is invisible and boring if the world around it is empty. This is where you want to use either:

1. A Sphere_Map node connected to an image

2. My Environment Sphere with a 360 degree image in it.

Okay thats where I get lost baggs not really those are how to set them up. But the rest of what you said made sense about having an empty world and what not

I guess what I am going for and since I just got done watching the movie lord of the rings and the scene where they pick up the broken sword got me thinking about rendering things with that silver metal reflective look where the light hits it. Doesnt have to have the whole sword all shiney and what not cause in reality if you have a object and only part of it is in the light only that part will reflect and the other parts would be less reflective because they are in the shadows hence lower reflection.

Hey I just sounded smart there :)

BB is 100% correct. You'll see a major difference if you load a setting.

Now to figure out how to set new material zones lol this sword wasnt the best prop to use since it had only one material for the whole sword hence the reason the handle turned shiney and that is just plan silly now it would hurt her hands if she wacked something with those swords with no padding on the handle lol.

Anyways thanks again for the help

I think that handle is difficult to grouping, but I think that with Poser grouping tool you can easy select blade and assign material.

The sword can be regrouped using the grouping tool,  or you can set up a mask for the reflection channel attached to reflection value. Black is  reflection value of 0 and white is a value of 1. 

http://www.faeriewylde.com/FW3/index.php?topic=3665.new;topicseen

It seems easy and quik to do.

These are some pics from the tuteorial

Unfortunately, you need to be a member to access the link.

To save the material just go into the material room , and with the sword selected press the + at the bottom of the library. You can save a single material or a collection. Follow the prompts.

thanks mark figured that out sort of but it saved the sword texture with it, wanted it with out a texture added so I can apply it to any texture lol not sure if that is possible though but we cant always have what we want all the time.

Still courious as to what BB mentioned about this

Quote - "
Now - a perfect mirror is invisible and boring if the world around it is empty. This is where you want to use either:

1. A Sphere_Map node connected to an image

1. My Environment Sphere with a 360 degree image in it."

is that way to fake sometthing being in the scene honestly I dont use props and scenes to much usely render my figure with an empty scene and work from there.

But as I learned if there is nothing in the scene the reflections turn white which is bad bad bad lol. So I guess what I am trying to figure out is what he mentioned takes an image of say an outdoor image and tricks poser to using that image to reflect off things.

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?message_id=2932943&ebot_calc_page#message_2932943

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?message_id=2968071&ebot_calc_page#message_2968071

I clicked the RDNA link that you linked to and the RDNA forums said 404 not found.

In general, to learn about what I have to say on topic XYZ, enter XYZ in the Rendo search field, enter older than 1 day in the date range, and enter bagginsbill as the author. 

In this case, searching for Sphere_Map posts by me got the links I posted. (And dozens more)

Quote - I clicked the RDNA link that you linked to and the RDNA forums said 404 not found.

RDNA changed all their links but the threads are still there. The link says I was talking about probelight (which nobody needs to know anything about frankly) and the Sphere_Map. But the material screen shot I posted is all you need to know to do basic sphere mapping of an image to project onto the empty parts of the world.

You might be able to find the other thread by searching RDNA forums for Sphere_Map, posts by me. I have to go rake grass - wife is bustin' my a** today.

aaaaah okay thanks BB finally something you posted I understand not that you dont explain it well, everything you do is way beyond my scope of things you truely are a master :)