How can i create Hot Metal texture

kunglao

i am trying to create a texture for my character where his hand and arm look extremely hot (molten lava is the best descripyion i can think of).
I want it for diffuse but the character will also have a Spec map, i also want it to cool down as it travels up the arm,any suggestions.
Included below my early testings and the 2nd image is a pic i found on google and would really like to create something similar to his horns.

gavku

My only suggestion would be to go and gather picks of molten meltal, and try and replicate the look. You will also want to figure out how the heat is moving. If its hottest at the finger tips and cooling as it climbs the arm, then, that is the way you should paint the heat gradient.

MoP

I'd use a glow (self-illumination) map... since when objects are red hot they emit dull red light. Just make that area nice and red/orange in the glow map (lighter yellow/white in the cracks might look ok too), turn down the specular nearly to zero on the glowing area, and make the diffuse fairly dark and burned looking.

Rick Stirling

And fake some glow on the diffuse of the upper armour.

kunglao

MoP i have tried what you said and using the diffuse texture i painted the hand red fading into orange as it travels up the arm.This is then to be my glow map.I darkened the diffuse hand and arm but when i put the glow map in the self illumination slot in max and render it is not showing,i have a translucent shader also applied to the model and have a basic 3 point light set up,can anyone advise?

Eric Chadwick

Self-illum by default in Max's Blinn shader is set to only use grayscale values. Check the Color checkbox in the Blinn Basic Params rollout to switch it to use color values. Also, Self-illum is additive to your diffuse, so either make diffuse black there, or use it overbright if you like.

kunglao

trhanks Eric,The problem i have is that i am using a Translucent shader not blinn,my diffuse,falloff(for skin) and bump are all here,not added spec.In my inexperience when i broke up the model i created one meshbitmap which not only included the skin parts but also his armour etc.The glow effect that yourself and MoP explained works if i revert to blinn but as a consequence i lose the falloff which i would prefer to keep.Any suggestions?

MoP

if you wanna keep the falloff you could add a Fresnel shader as a mask for a spherical environment map in the Reflection slot...
personally i'd recommend just ditching the translucent shader and using a more standard one, since it seems that this glowing armour segment is an integral part of your character design, I'd focus on getting that working rather than worrying about a subtle shader effect.

Rick Stirling

Is this for a nice render, or for an ingame effect?

If its for a render, you could duplicate the hand and turn the duplicate into a light emitter (there are tutorials in the max help to do this)

Hell, if it's for a render you could just post process it in photoshop.

For in game you might already have problems getting that shader to work, and it might again be easier to duplicate the geo and make the hot effects on the duplicate, or use particle effects for heat haze.

kunglao

thanks guys,
Rick- it is an in game model(4900 tri's inc.weapons).
I have posted a couple of pics,still very much a wip on the texturing.Removed Transculcent shader and gone with just diffuse,bump and self illumination.Relatively new to shaders etc and really aiming on making the model look as good as i can,however i am always keen to try and implement new stuff to my modelling and texturing.Using basic 3 point light setup that still nedds tweaking.The legs(yet to be done)also pose a problem for me-i want a fur/hair look,so far just laid basic colour but interested in your thoughts on best way to create fur/hair.