Shiny Metal Reflection

insomnia_5c322be5d8

Carrara 8.5 Pro

I use Carrara to create 3D concepts of custom glass and metal items. I often use a shiny metal shader on an item with a flat surface but it still looks flat. It doesn't come off looking like a shiny chrome surface.

The scenes I've created are very simple and I have a feeling that the metal needs something to reflect but I don't have any idea of methods.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

TangoAlpha

Try using an HDRI image on the background (you'll need to enable Sky lighting for it to illuminate the scene). This will act like a giant 3D environment, and be reflected in your objects.

There's lots of HDRI images around for download - here's some examples: http://www.hdrlabs.com/sibl/archive.html

Dartanbeck

...and it doesn't even need to be an HDRI, either. Any spherical background can help with this.
Here's an example of how to make your own spherical background using Carrara, fairly quickly:

Create or load in one of the presets of a realistic sky. Play around with the cloud settings as they will provide excellent additions to your reflections. Alternately, Tim Payne has some excellent sky presets that include clouds.
Try to NOT use lens flares on a spherical background image. Effects like that belong in the final render, if used at all.

It can often help to turn off ground in the realistic sky, perhaps even change the horizon elevation... that is left to each individual's tastes.

Pick a terrain preset and drag it into the scene. I prefer to simply make my own (Insert > Terrain)
Use a preset terrain shader, if you need something other than what's on there. These can be fun to tweak as well! ;)

Pull that terrain away from the center of the scene and away from the camera. It is not a focal point, just some background information. We want the atmosphere of the Realistic Sky to add depth, so a hundred feet or so is nice.

Select the terrain and Ctrl + D to duplicate it.

Move and rotate the new duplicate to give a whole new look, then Ctrl + D again. The new duplicate will then move and rotate automatically, as long as Undo (Ctrl + z) was not used. This can quickly surround the scene with terrain all the way around.

Remember, we're not looking for anything special for our eyes to focus on, we're making a simply image that can be used to assist in our scene's reflections.

Rotate your main camera around. It can help to drop in a Target Helper Object for this, so that you have something in the scene center to select and rotate around. We're not looking for interest here, we're looking for gaps that can draw the eye away from whatever final object this BG image will be used behind.

Do a few low resolution test renders.

Once you're happy with the surroundings, drop in a spherical camera, Rotate it 90 degrees so that it faces the horizon rather than the ground. I often also lift the camera six feet or so off the ground, even if I'm not using a ground - but on that note, I almost always include some sort of ground plane, and lower it way down for this sort of spherical image, but this might not be necessary.

In the render room, set the Spherical camera as the film cam, and change the resolution to 8,000 x 4,000 for a start. Now just put a check in the 'retain aspect ratio' box, so that you can change resolution without changing our 2:1 ratio
Now switch it to something smaller, like 1000 x 500 and do a test render. You'll see a small version of your spherical map. Even at this low resolution, you can add this image into the "Background"> Image Map of Carrara, and Carrara will read the spherical information and give you a full surrounding of colors according to your image. It can take a while to render a higher resolution background image. In some cases, you may not even need it to be very high. 8,000 x 4,000 is not considered 'high' but it often provides plenty of surrounding detail to eliminate the need to go higher, unless you also want to rely on the central ground as part of the final render. Moral of the story... forget making spherical maps for the ground. It will be much more efficient and versatile to instead make a ground plane of some sort that matches your spherical background.

Anyways... I gotta go.

Dartanbeck

Using Background spherical images can also allow us to reduce the actual reflectivity in the shader, and use a higher (brighter) highlight with the right shininess setting to facilitate a super shiny look. Then it's up to our light placement to get the shines right. A good back light set at a brightness of 250 or even higher can add a lot of extra shine. You can then set it to only affect the shiny object(s) so it doesn't cast too much light where you don't want it.

Using spherical backgrounds, I've lowered reflectivity as low as 10% and still saw reflections. The Highlight and Shininess channels can really help this out in a big way. High Highlight values means more highlight... pretty easy to set. But shininess is a value that refers to how tight that highlight will appear. "0" means full highlight, "100" means that the shininess is so tight that you'll get pretty much no highlight.
I often use 20 - 30 for reflective surfaces. Windows I go closer to zero shininess, with a lower highlight and only about 5 - 10 reflect.

evilproducer

If you want the Background spherical HDRI/image reflected, but don't want the Background HDRI/image to show up in the render, there's a couple options. You can use the HDRI/spherical render in the Background as suggested above, and then place an image, color, or color gradient in the Backdrop. This will cover the image in the Background while still allowing the Background to be reflected.

The other option is to choose the Render Alpha Channel option in the Render Room. I usually just render a straight alpha, although you can use the pre-multiplied option as well. Your mileage may vary. Then you can composite the render with you background of choice in your image editor.

By the way, any image, HDRI, color or color gradient placed in the scene's Background, if Skylight is enabled in the Render room, will act as an Image Based Light (IBL). Also, a sky in the Atmosphere slot will also be reflected. If Skylight is enabled, it to will act as an IBL.

If you use and image or HDRI in the Background or the Backdrop in conjunction with a sky in the Atmosphere slot, the images in the Background or Backdrop will appear as if they are "behind" the atmosphere. Very handy for adding planets rising above an alien planet's horizon or other effects.

A note about the Backdrop. It does not wrap around the scene. It does not reflect or act as an IBL. It only fills the production frame. If you use a photo or other picture, it should be the same aspect as the final render. If it is a different aspect, it will appear distorted as it is forced to fit the production frame.

Design Acrobat

Excellent chrome advise! (object uses HDRI map and same map in the reflection shader texture map) with an almost black (dark grey) in the color channel.

I found adding caustics (holly wetcircuits' idea) to items with some volume, gives it a little pop - almost a glow.

insomnia_5c322be5d8

Excellent. Tons of great options. Thank you everyone.