QUICK METALLIC MATERIAL SETTINGS IN POSER 5
The Poser 5 Material Room is one of the main reasons that I suggest to anyone who can afford it that they get Poser 5 rather than backtracking and starting out with Poser 4 or Pro Pack. Simply put, it gives you ten times as many options and material creation ability as Poser 4 or Pro Pack ever could, and can give you a lot more expandability as far as saving materials you use and custom ones you create.
Most of the Poser 5 materials look fine whether they're rendered using the base Poser 4 renderer or the higher-quality Firefly render engine, both of which come with Poser 5. And almost all the bugs have been cleared out by Service Release Pack 4. Some of what I'm detailing here can actually be implemented in Poser 4 and Pro Pack, but you'd have to test that out to be sure.
Anyway, let's get to business with everyone's favorite elf, Tascia.
1. USING THE MATERIAL ROOM
Here we see Tascia sort of au naturale, and we see the texture that I've used for her. The OBJECT, above, shows I've selected Tascia, and the MATERIAL shows that I'm adjusting her Skin-Head texture. So naturally, anything I do right now is going to affect the texture of Tascia's face and ears. Pretty simple, neh? The pull-downs in the MATERIAL area include all the body material sections for Tascia, from her lips, to eyebrows, to teeth, to her body skin. I'll need those later. The pull-down OBJECT allows me to select other models or props in my scene, or in this case, Tascia's hair (which is a different model than Tascia herself)
So at any rate, this is where I select my Reflective Gold texture, which I picked up... erm... SOMEwhere, although I'll be damned if I can find them now... and click the check mark. I could use the standard Poser 5 node-based hammered gold, and soften the bumps, but these reflective textures tend to work better. You can find other P5 node-based textures around, I know, so if you can't find these specific ones, look in freestuff areas and at places like Poser Pros and Renderosity for Procedural Shaders for Poser 5. Guarantee you'll find ones that work just as well.
Anyway... one click. Blam. Just like that. Sounds simple, right?
2. ADJUSTMENT
Well, it is. But not really! See, as I said before, the reflection on the base Reflective Gold map is way too much for Poser to handle and give a good modelesque look without a lot of reflections taking away from the facial expression, transparency maps and the like. So what I've done here is two-fold: 1st, I dropped the reflection value above from it's normal 1.0000 range to 0.6000. For this picture, I've chosen not to change the Specular Value, although I often adjust it slightly, as well. What this does is soften the hard reflectiveness of metals like gold, and chrome, and make it so that if I place my character in a scene, she won't necessarily be just a mirror for her surroundings, and will draw the viewer's attention to her first and foremost. It also means my model's body takes shadows a bit better, making her look more realistic in my scene.
The second thing I've done is taken a facial bump map (an altitude dependent greyscale texture that comes with some character textures) and attached it to my gradient bump node. This raises my character's eyebrows (not literally) from her facial structure slightly, so they are more noticeable in the final outcome, and also keeps the character's personality intact. What I mean by that is that all Poser 4 Females and Vicky Models are, at their base, the same mesh. Sure, you can adjust the morph targets on them, but what really sets them apart in any render is their textures. The problem is, we just nixed Tascia's standard texture and replaced it with gold. Not a huge problem, I know. But if you do a render with multiple characters and don't bump map them, you will likely end up with a collage of several very similar statues. The bump map gives just enough of the facial and body texture outlines for you to be able to keep the original character's looks intact, so they lose that sense of sameness.
Naturally, after I do up Tascia's face, in Poser Five's Material room there is a library, just like where you save a pose or a character or prop in the Pose Room. I generally save the texture, so I don't have to go through all of this for each material zone. I can delete it later. And then I pull down each material for her (Tascia is a Vicky Model, so I do her ordinarily transparent eyeballs-- corneas-- rather than her irises, pupils and eyewhites, so I can have that 'no irises' look to my statues, just because I prefer my statues that way), and apply that same material... changing where necessary the facial bump for a body bump or for no bump at all, and applying transparency maps to the gold of her hair and eyelashes, and-- if the model calls for it-- her upper eyebrows. Repetitive, yes. Necessary? Definitely yes.
IF YOU'RE USING POSER 4... you will not have a gradient bump node, the Diffuse and Specular Color/Value boxes or the connected sphere map shown above, because Poser 4's Material Interface is scads different. What I would suggest is to try the Diffuse Color and Value for your Object Color and Strength, the Specular Color/Value for your Highlight Color/Strength, and use a reflection map set at a little more than half-strength (they're available all over the place for free, just do a search at the free stuff area of Renderosity-- www.renderosity.com ) Other than that, as much as I'm afraid to say it, you might have to work with trial and error... Poser 4 isn't nearly as 'Metal Friendly' as P5.
3. DONE, RIGHT?
Well, ALMOST. See, any reflective substance takes its cues from its environment, which means that you have to work with your lights to get the best effects. The standard light sets with Poser are a good place to start, but you HAVE to adjust their settings. Most of the standard P4 and P5 lights cast hard shadows, and are very unforgiving. I tend to use sets I've picked up in other places, and I have a few I've created at the spur of the moment using spotlights rather than the infinite lights. Two important things to keep in mind... one, if you select a light, notch its shadow map up from the standard 256 to at least twice that. I usually use 1028. It gives softer, more forgiving shadows.
Second, don't be afraid to create more lights, even if they don't appear to add much to the scene. A standard three light scene includes a caster, a tone and a fill. The caster is your primary light source, which is pointed at the model from somewhere near the camera. A tone is an ambient light that sets mood without necessarily adding shadow. And a fill adds shadows and depth. Most sets at least use three lights, but far more or far fewer can be used if you know your techniques. The main thing I'm trying to say in this rambling diatribe is that lighting is going to be every bit as essential to getting a good, clean polished metal look to your models as the textures themselves.
Anyway, to close, that's what I do. Look around the net and don't be shy about asking questions to the gurus or looking up Tutorials at places like Poser Pros, Runtime DNA, Renderosity, or the other Poser- and 3D-content places. Renderosity and RDNA's tutorials have been utterly invaluable to me in learning how to do what I'm still a class-one amateur at. So definitely check them out.
Oh, and before we go, let's see how Tascia turned out. I rendered her with the Firefly Render Engine with Raytracing on, which is time-consuming and memory intensive and sometimes whacks my computer out. But when it does work, it sometimes gives very good results, so I'll chance it... but there's nothing that says you can't use the P4 Renderer and get better results than this:
Not too bad. Not too great. But definitely gold. I'll likely work more on her for other renders. I have other things to get to in Poser in the meantime. ^_^ Hope this helped you out!
MH/AF