Attached Link: help!

look at the distored effect on the train... http://www.nycrail.com/images/207yd_7_10_01/r110b2001_0710AR.JPG (my train is at http://www.masteratwork.com/4d/2train.jpg and as you can see the texture is just too clean and plain) I have experimented with virtually all the goddamn distort filters and others but I can't seem to get this one right. what am I missing? http://www.masteratwork.com

The reason those distortion effects are there is because the metal isn't perfect like it is on 3d models. The metal is old and warped ever so slightly, not enough to notice the grooves, but enough to really mess with light. I'm not one for 3d programs and the like, and because this is in the photoshop forum, it tells me that this may not be a 3d mesh period. My advice is to go do it by hand. If you look at the example you posted the link to, all the highlights are REALLY blown out, very flatly coloured, with 2-4 step colours gradients which wouldn't be difficult at all to achive in photoshop. All you gott do is mess around. Also, do a render clouds filter on a new image, and then really blow out the contrast. Similar effects come out of it. Maybe by doing that, then playing with the tilt and skew transforms, along with some layer work might get what yer looking for. then again, I could be completely off...

Attached Link: http://www.flamingpear.com

There's a cool plug in called "SuperBladePro" from Flaming Pear that makes great bumpy metal effects. You can download a free demo that works fully for like 30 days. They make some other cool plug in's too.

If you do the render clouds thing and use it in different channels, but the bump channel first, of your shaders (if you can do stuff with the 3D model) it might get better. If you use different clouds the resulting randomness makes it more real world-like. I once made metal which looked like stainless steel: starting with gray, adding 10 pt noise, then doing a large motion blur, then unsharpen mask. By doing this several times, on different layers and then mess with the layer settings it will look like some kind of metal. Maybe. Other blotches and scratches you can do by hand. When you do them in an alpha channel and use that in render/lighting effects (if that is the english name of the filter) it will work out very well. Maybe. The result could be used as a texture in the 3D program of your choice. Or do the perspective transformation in PS. Ofcourse you can also use pictures of metal. Or trains.

If your 3D-Application allows it, simply add a large-scale, small amplitude noise-map to your displacement-channel. 3D-Max allows this option, I guess Lightwave and Cinema 4D have comparable shader-functions. This should cause the light to be reflected in a more distorted way. Using the bump-map-channel will not result in an effect like this, since the bump-map doesn't really distort the metal.

Using the bump-channel will help. The metal will look distorted, only not on the edges. But that is what a bumpchannel is for, to present the suggestion of, like, bumps. RayDream, Poser, Carrera and Bryce don't have that kind of displacement options, just bump maps. So it kind of depends on the program one uses.

Attached Link: http://www.masteratwork.com

hey guys, THANK YOU SO MUCH for such a variety of tips and techniques to get what I am looking for. well my train definitely looks much better and I will have proof at my site on my homepage hopefully over this weekend. basically the ONLY way I am able to get anything close to the real thing is thru trial and error and changing parameters/re-rendering. the sucky thing is the scene is so built up already it takes 2 and a half hours to render and to just do a test render on the outer train body with a light or two wont show me what it'll be like withing the scene. I am using Cinema 4D so displacement is not a problem, I am using a weak strength (around 8% and a maximum of 1m). also a messy clouds/noise/chrome texture is in effect for bumping. oh a shot of a subway car (on the opposite side of the platform why not lol) is being used for an environmental map in addition to reflection. specular and diffuse settings are also important. I have read over the material and lighting chapters in the C4D manula twice already and am learning alot and on top of that I am still new to this.