How can I create shaders with advanced specular reflections?

Heather Gulliver, Australia Eva replies You might think creating something simple like a light bulb is easy, but creating advanced shaders is actually quite a challenge – especially in metal. I wanted to create something as realistic as possible and the best example to use is a real light bulb. If you don’t always have the resources, photos are a great option. Breaking down the materials and listing them helps with the creating process and modelling the different parts.

Setting up your render elements will be a great asset to your rendering result when compositing. You’ll want to control the reflections, and especially refractions and

To polish the materials further, use maps to break up the reflection and gloss to achieve a more realistic material

multichannel EXR is a great option. For me, the specular highlights of the materials and on the metal was something I never thought of layering. I’ll use a Samplerinfo node, which is then reversed and connected to a remap value, where I control the reflectance curve for the index of refraction. You can find the correct reflectance curve value online as a physically accurate reference. Remember to adjust the curve in each layer; you may find the curve is a great base to work with and will need adjusting generally to gain the correct specular highlight amount.

To polish the materials further, use maps to break up the reflection and gloss to achieve a more realistic material. I used Mari as it gives me the control to test out my maps with the correct material setup before exporting back into Maya. Light and render your scene to composite and I used Nuke as it allows for flexible control.