Creating a Plain, Shiny Texture in RenderWorks

Daniel Jansenson
Architect

In architecture school, we used to have a very tough and demanding presentation graphics class, well known for the professor's ruthless grading practices. One motto relentlessly drummed into our heads was: "when in doubt, stipple." Stippling, in a variety of strengths and densities, was seen as a technique that could improve any line drawing, especially when a deadline loomed and ideas were lacking; a kind of magic wand for quickly making drawings look better.

A RenderWorks image can be similarly improved instantly simply by making a surface shiny. Or reflective. It adds a focal point to the image, and simply makes the image more interesting. As an emergency technique, it can spice up a presentation in very short order, which is vital when creating presentation drawings on a deadline. This tutorial shows a method and settings for a quick shiny surface reflective enough to add interest, but not so shiny that it distracts from the image. The texture that results can be applied to any 3-D object. It will also take on that object's color, and can be easily modified later to suit the image.

1. The first step is to create a new resource. Open the Resource Browser, click on the Resources button, and then drag the cursor down to New Resource in...[name of the open file], then to RenderWorks Texture.

2. The Edit Texture dialog box opens. Type a name, for example, Shiny 1.

3. The next step is to adjust the new texture's settings. Let the Color shader remain set to the default of Obj Attribute, which allows the texture to take on the object's own color. For the Reflectivity shader, click on the Edit button to open the dialog of its default Mirror setting. Using the sliders, adjust the reflectivity settings as follows:

• Ambient: 1.5 back from maximum
  
• Diffuse: 2.5 back from maximum
  
• Specular: 5.5
  
• Mirror: 2.25 (Note: this value increases or decreases the texture's actual reflectivity)
  
• Roughness: 1.75
  

4. Click OK to exit the Edit Mirror Shader dialog.

5. Let the Transparency and Bump shader settings remain set to their default values (although it is worth adjusting them experimentally to see the results). Leave the Size and Preview options unchanged as well.

6. Click OK to exit the Edit Texture dialog. The new material will now appear as a new texture in the Resource Browser and can be applied to any surface to add a subtle level of reflectivity to it.

About the Author

Daniel Jansenson is an architect in private practice, in Santa Monica, California. He is the author of the RenderWorks Recipe Book, available via imageprops.com.

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