Metal in UDK, whats the best way?

BenHenry

I have been playing games such as crysis 2, and homefront etc... I noticed that on the weapons, the metal looks totally amazing/real.
I've tried to imitate this, but all has come out to be a complete failure.
I've mostly been using specmaps in the UDK, but the metal (again) looks horrible. My metal seems to be flat, and boring.

What are your tips for achieving great looking metal?

sprunghunt

use a reflection map for very shiny metal.

but most of the time it's all about how well you make your specular map. Coloured specular maps can help.

passerby

samples of your attempts at it would help.

make a good specular map that has some detail that is not in your diffuse, and add a gloss texture, and try using a cubemap depending on the effect you want.

BenHenry

Ok, so this is the kind of metal I want to achieve:


But this is what I get:





My metal looks absolutely horrible. I am not sure what to do.

Nielsen

You'll need to use reflection maps which are simply pictures of environments (either blurred or not) or simply (pictures of) multiple light sources of different strengths to simulate ambient reflection on your models.

Something like so for example:

Note that the shape of these pictures has nothing to do with em, you can use any texture in UDK. Try to hook one up with a reflection vector and component mask like so:



Instead of the vector transform you could also use a component mask set to R and G only.

For extra awesomeness, multiply it with a fresnel node and a mask texture (for reflectivity or not = white/black)

Hope this helps!

Adam L. Gray

/edit: What he said basically ^

Well, as mentioned previously, the metal in that first picture relies heavily on a reflection map. So look up some tutorials on setting up a cubemap in UDK, and add that to your material.

I believe there's a lot of info on cubemaps when it comes to creating glass materials for udk.

Then, seeing as this is a very reflective material, you might want to keep the diffuse quite dark, and add a very strong specular. Don't be afraid of multiplying by 2-4 times inside udk, as specular usually comes out a bit weak in there.

Also, lastly, specular power/gloss is very important to define metal. I can't quite recall what kind of value would be proper in udk, but play around with it a bit and compare it to reference images to get it right.

Cheers

BenHenry

Hey guys,
Thanks a ton for the help!
I just finished up a sphinx 3000 tactical, and here are some shots: