3d text metal reflections

[adigirl]

Hi! I want to make this text with a metallic texture, I tried using a vray material with an hdri. The letters seem to have a few reflections but the base of the text (the squares) has no reflections besides it looks kinda plain as if it only had a color and no texture. What can I do to add a more realistic metal texture? I'm using vray as a render



Another question. When I add a texture I used to be able to see it before rendering, like in the regular viewports but now I can't. When I add a texture now, the object only looks gray. Is it some option I have to enable or something?

[Fisher]

adigirl, do you have any reference pictures of the texture you're trying to create?

Have you instanced the HDRI to a meterial slot and chosen "Sphircal" or "Cylindrical" in the mapping parameter?

The base material looks like it's reflecting but because it is a flat surface, you wont get the specular highlights unless the angle of the camera is in the path of the light bounces, if that makes sense.

Is there a bump map applied to the base material? The finer the bump map (i.e. noise w/ size of 0.01), the less reflections you get... or so it seems. Like sand paper. Or maybe you get MORE reflections but they're more blended or not as strong. If you need to, you can throw in another omni light and tell it to only affect specular - that way you can get more reflection w/o having a brighter image.

Also, in the material parameters of the metal, you will have to play with the reflections a bit to get it right. If you change the color, white means reflect 100%, black is 0.

As far as seeing the material in the viewport, when you're in the material editor, check the checkered cube - this is the 'Show Map in Viewport" button. Also make sure you have Smooth + Highlights selected as your view in the viewport!

If you can post a reference material or something that you're trying to achieve, it might be easier to help out.

[rpadc2002]

another thing is how you create the materials, was the color for the reflection white or dark, iN vray this concerned much. post your material parameter

[Jelmer]

Also, try chamfering the edges of the squares a few times to get some reflections like you have on the letters.

[adigirl]

material parameters


and the render settings







and the result









From angles other than the front one it doesn't look that bad, although I would like it to be better, but from the front it still looks plain. I tried to apply a texture and a bump map to see if it could be better but it didn't. I want to make make it look like this or similar

[ExTaZ]

Look´s like a good metal texture

[Fisher]

instead of rendering from the top viewport, square away the text in the perspective viewport and render from there. from the image you want to copy, it looks like it is not exactly top down, but rather from a birds-eye view (your render). also, for the maps, it looks like the diffuse texture map is what's affected rather than the lighting... i suggest putting some highlights on the texuture map youre using for the blocks and then increasing the specularity and/or reflectivity of your text material.

[lecameleon]

Use a falloff map in the reflect parameter.. and play with the reflective glossiness... dont set it to fresnel reflection in the falloff map though.. should give you better results..