Why Does The Default Stainless Steel Look So Dark?

[4hotshoez]

With adjusted lighting in both images the stainless looks nearly black. Why? These are default settings.

[DavidJPotter]

A kind Chief Talk user made this library awhile back and is what I use to get decent results for this material.

 

I suppose the "reason" is that the default "Stainless Steel" is merely a color and when you have a material that is composed of a color and a texture it is easier to get better visual results from such a "material"

 

DJP

Stainless Steel.calibz

[Bill_Emery]

The attached texture works better for me.

[KirkClemons]

4hotshoez The first image you attached is a ray traced image. The predefined metal materials show all black in a ray trace unless you enable photon mapping in your ray trace settings:

 

http://video.chiefarchitect.com/?search=1591

[keithhe]

Kirk,

 

Are you actually a "Modertator" or a Modertater on this forum?

[KirkClemons]

Kirk,

 

Are you actually a "Modertator" or a Modertater on this forum?

 

Yes I am.

[Alaskan_Son]

I guess the real question is...

 

Is a potato a tater or a tator?

[KirkClemons]

lol Yeah, I've let the super moderator know about the typo.

[Alaskan_Son]

lol Yeah, I've let the super moderator know about the typo.

ya....I'm not sure its a typo Kirk.

[keithhe]

Typo??

You guys are from the tater state. Seems fine to me, except should be tater rather than tator. You need to get that fixed.

[KirkClemons]

Ha! Duly noted! 

[keithhe]

Being from the greater Washington DC area, we get to hear about the "offensive nature" of the Redskins Team here. I tend to agree and hope they will drop the "Washington" part of the name, as all things down there are offensive to me. If forced to re-name, and hope Danny holds out, my vote is for the Idaho Redskin Potatoes. We'll just keep calling them the Redskins and if need be the logo could be changed slightly to look like a tater.

That will shut up the noisy minority.

[Fun2Learn]

A kind Chief Talk user made this library awhile back and is what I use to get decent results for this material.

 

I suppose the "reason" is that the default "Stainless Steel" is merely a color and when you have a material that is composed of a color and a texture it is easier to get better visual results from such a "material"

 

DJP

Thank you so much, David for sharing this! I too have been unhappy about how the default stainless was looking and tried to play around with the materials controls, but without much luck. I downloaded your file and applied it to some appliance and they look MUCH better! Thanks so much!

Phyllis

[Rich_Winsor]

                              ALL HAIL THE REDSKINS

 

        

[keithhe]

That's perfect Rich. I love that !!!

[Kbird1]

Pretty Funny ...I downloaded the SS library looking for an upgrade only to find it was the Library I made back in June from a couple of images I found on a Texture Site after finding that the Fridge and faucets looked bad in a Reno Plan I was working on. I am pretty surprised that Chief doesn't have a much better material actually since I am a loooong way from being a Graphic Artist of any kind 

 

Bill's Pic (texture) looks good too , will have to try it...

 

Mick.

[KirkClemons]

I believe the core issue is that we don't render 'shiny' materials in a standard render view.

We've looked into creating some textures but to make them seamless the steel looks kind of funny.

 

Also, because we can Ray Trace a material and make it look photo realistic the priority just hasn't been there.

I'll post some graphics to this thread if I get a chance to come up with any decent textures to use for metal.

Taking the textures that David J Potter has posted as a reference should help determine what type of texturing users are most likely to like.

[Kbird1]

I have no idea how the Textures I made Ray trace Kirk , never tried it, I don't do RT much at all. I may still have the original textures somewhere if you need them ?, no doubt you would do a better job of cropping, rotating ,adjusting properties etc.

 

Mick.

[KirkClemons]

Kbird1, The more references the better.   

 

I tend to make textures the way most gamers do, very flat, no lighting or shading whatsoever. This is because the game's rendering engine usually adds specularity to surfaces and renders things that are supposed to be glossy or shiny. Chief doesn't do that unless you ray trace so flat textures tend to look colorless or bland, especially when dealing with metals.

 

The other side is that our ray tracer removes the texture if you set a material to be a 'Predefined Metal' which is why all of our current metals are just a solid color with no texture.

 

All that to say, any references that you or any users reading this thread can attach, provided that they are textures you have been happy with, are more than welcome!

[Chiefer]

Just 1 request: Give us the ability to blur reflections.

[Cheryl_C_Crane]

Look in the Formica Folder of the Manufacturers Library > DecoMetal> Solid Metal. There are some great textures that Ray Trace well. I like 4194 & 4245. There are many others that make for a way to have Sinks out of one material and the faucet out of another. For instance, I like sinks out of 4194 and the faucet in 4245. The subtle changes are also good for things like appliance labels & hardware.

 

I like to use the Formica wood-grains, too. With woods I dial back the reflectivity.

 

Hope that you find them as useful as I have.

[keithhe]

Jintu,

 

Your RT's always look great !! I'd kill to have one half as nice as you regularly get. Very nice

[Chiefer]

Thank you!

 

I would love see Chief avail of the Corona Renderer, It's real fast and most of all it's free....for now.

 

https://corona-renderer.com/

[keithhe]

Jintu,

I tried the link, went through the download process and it says it installed but no evidence it actually is on computer?? Really odd as I wanted to try it out.

If I might ask, would you mind starting a separate thread with what you like about it? Many here trust your judgment in this regard. It looks nice enough on their web page though.

[Chiefer]

I have no idea why you cannot find it. Maybe it went straight to your 3dsMax root folder. Try the standalone.

 

What it says here are true: It's a one-click process. I find easy to use, That's all I can say,

 

Main advantages

• Free for commercial use without any limitations, with user-friendly pricing planned for future releases.
• Easy to use - most scenes can be rendered with default settings, without changing a single parameter! Most new users are able to learn Corona in 1-3 days. And it is a deeply integrated 3ds MAX plugin, not only an exporter.
• High quality results with no interpolation artifacts or splotches. Only 100% crisp ray-traced shadows and GI. Even biased results are very close to the unbiased reference.
• Fast rendering with immediate feedback with the progressive rendering. Corona can quickly render complicated scenes with glossy reflections, soft shadows, massive vegetation, etc.
• Fast development - There is a new major version every few months. Most serious reported bugs are fixed in a matter of days. Users can propose new features, and most of the good suggestions are implemented in the next major release.