Applying gold, silver, platinum material in 3ds max

This is my first tutorial on anything so bear with me; I will try to be as complete as possible. I decided to write this tutorial

for two reasons; firstly to benefit those in the online CG community who have helped me get started with their wonderful

tutorials and advice as well as those just starting to find their way in CG, and secondly because I could not find any similar

tutorials that yielded what I would consider satisfactory results.

 

As we all know 3Ds Max does not come with a decent precious or semi-precious metal material. Originally I tried making

my own gold by modifying the dark gold material that comes with 3Ds Max, but as you may imagine that did not turn out

well. So going online I found many tutorials dealing with gold, a few that included copper, and one or two that included

brass. They were all needlessly complex, took forever to put together, delivered results that were less than spectacular, took

too long to render, or had some combination of the afore-mentioned problems. So having a little more experience in 3Ds

Max and being fed up with trying to follow tutorials that were not giving the results I liked; I went back to my own drawing

board.

 

The metals will all be shown initially in a polished state in order to display the Material without any effects from the

different surfaces I will show you at the end of the tutorial. Also despite my complaint about long render times, be aware that

if you follow my instructions in setting up the test scene for the Materials it will take a minute or two to render. This is

because I jacked up the triangle count on the teapot (160,000) in order to give it a very smooth surface so that the Materials

could be shown without any deformation due to blocky geometry. One final note before I get into it, I will assume that all the

menus and panels are in their default placements, if you are advanced enough to have re-arranged the layout I will assume

you are advanced enough to find where you put the different parts of the interface. I will not get too into the physics of light

reflection/refraction because lets face it, if thats what you wanted you would have bought a book on color theory.

 

The tutorial will be split up into several parts:

 

1)      Immediately following on this page is a very basic scene to display our work and the Materials we will create

2)      Gold and Copper Materials

3)      Brass and Bronze Materials

4)      Platinum and Silver Materials

5)      Four basic finishes that are appropriate for use with each of the metals and some considerations for aging the

metals

 

 

Basic Scene

 

If you have not already, go ahead and start up 3Ds Max. Now click in the Perspective viewport and then click the Maximize

Viewport Toggle to maximize it. In the Create Panel make sure Standard Primitives are selected in the drop down box. Next

click the Plane primitive and click and drag in the viewport to create a plane. Do not worry about where to make it or how

big, we will set that now. With the Plane still selected click the Select & Move button on the top toolbar then press F12 to

bring up the Move Transform Type-In dialog. In the Absolute:World group enter 0 for X, Y, and Z then close the dialog by

clicking the large X to the right of the title bar. Next with the plane still selected click the Modify panel and where it says

Length enter 1000, do the same for the Width box.

 

Now click the create panel again to leave the Modify panel and press M on your keyboard to bring up the Material Editor.

Click on the first sphere and where it says 01-Default select the text and type in Floor. Leave Blinn as the shader and in the

Blinn Basic Parameters rollout in the Specualr Highlights section enter 67 for Specular Level and 42 for Glossiness. Now

scroll down to the maps rollout and click where it says Maps to expand it if it is not already expanded. Click on the long grey

button that says None next to Diffuse Color. The Material/Map Browser Window will open double click Checker in the list

to select the checker map. The Material/Map Browser Window will close and you will be looking at the settings for the

Checker Map. In the Coordinates rollout set the Tiling for both U and V to 100. Set the angle for W to 45. Leave everything

else here as it is and press the Go To Parent Button. Now click the long grey button that says None next to Reflection. Once

again the Material/Map Browser Window will open, this time double click Falloff Map to select it and close the

Material/Map Browser Window. Click the long grey None button next to the second color and in the list and double click

Raytrace. Leave the defaults alone and click the Go To Parent Button to go back to the Falloff map options and change the

Falloff Type to Fresnel.

 

Now scroll down to the Mix Curve rollout. Right click both terminators on the line drawn on the graph and select Bezier-

Corner. Now you will notice a short line and a black terminatior extending from each terminator on the line. Left click the

new terminator coming off the right side of the line and drag it to the top left corner of the graph. Next Left click the new

terminator coming off the left side of the line and drag it all the way to the left of the graph and about two thirds of the way

up. It should look like the image below.

 

 One last thing and we are done with the scene.

 

In the Create Panel click Teapot and click and drag in the viewport to create a Teapot in the middle of the scene any size you

want. Now click the Select and Move button again and press F12 to bring up the Move Transform Type-In dialog again and

once again enter 0 for X, Y, and Z. Now go to the Modify Panel again and set Segments to 50. We are done with the basic

scene; the Teapot will be the object we apply our metal Materials to.

Gold and Copper Materials 

Gold and Copper are closely related and the only real difference here is going to be the colors we use.

 

Gold

Click an empty material slot and rename it Gold the same way we renamed the Floor material. In the Shader Basic 

Parameters rollout choose Multi-Layer from the dropdown box.

 

Now in the Multi-Layer Basic Parameters rollout leave the Ambient and Diffuse colors locked and click the colored box next 

to Diffuse. Set the following values Red = 170, Green = 80, Blue = 0 and then click the Close button. Set the Diffuse Level to 

25.

 

In the First Specular Layer section click the colored box and enter the following values Red = 255, Green = 236, and Blue = 

23 then click the Close button. Still in the First Specular Layer section set Level to 75, Glossiness to 25, and Orientation to 

90.

 

Now scroll down to the Second Specular Layer section click the colored box and set the following values Red = 188, Green = 

75, Blue = 41 and then click the Close button. Still in the Second Specular Layer section set Level to 100, Glossiness to 30, 

and Anisotropy to 90.

 

Next scroll down to the maps section and if necessary click where it says Maps to expand the rollout. Go down to where it 

says Reflection, click the grey None button, and double click Falloff in the list. Now click the second None button and 

double click Raytrace leave everything at the default settings and click the Go To Parent button. Set the Falloff Type to 

Fresnel, lastly scroll down to the Mix Curve rollout and using the same method as described above make the curve match 

the image below and then click the Go To Parent button again.

Now apply the material to the Teapot by either clicking and dragging the material from the Material Editor to the Teapot or 

selecting the Teapot and clicking the Assign Material To Selection button. Render and voila! Convincing polished gold.

 

Keep the Material Editor open because the material we just created is the basis for all the others.

 

Copper

If you followed the previous steps you should be at the parent material already, if not keep clicking the Go To Parent 

button until it goes grey. Leave the Ambient and Diffuse colors as they are and go to the First Specular Layer section. Click 

the colored box and set the following values Red = 190, Green = 105, Blue = 78 and click the Close button. In the Second 

Specular Layer section click the colored block and set the following values Red = 255, Green = 102, Blue = 55 and click the 

Close button.

 

Leave everything else alone, apply the material to the Teapot and render shiny copper goodness.

 

Now onto Brass and Bronze.

Brass and Bronze 

Now we will create Brass and Bronze, and yes they are different metals. Most people use the terms interchangeably but 

they are different metals, with different metallurgic properties and very different colors. Both are Copper alloys but are 

made up differently.

 

Brass has a lesser percentage of Copper with Zinc added and sometimes a few other metals as well. The mix results in a 

pale washed out gold coloration.

 

Bronze is at least 50% copper and sometimes more with the remainder made up of Tin and very rarely are any other metals 

mixed in. This mix results in a richer more copper reddish coloration.

 

There are a few other results of the different combinations of metals in Brass and Bronze but Ill get to that in the last 

section of this tutorial.

 

 

Brass

Most of the settings remain the same here as they did for Gold and Copper, the only things we are going to change are the 

colors in the main material. Click the colored box next to Diffuse and set the following values Red = 181, Green = 166, Blue 

= 66 and then click the Close button. Click and drag this color to the colored block in the First Specular Layer section and in 

the window that comes up click Copy to copy the color to this slot.

 

Now go down to the Second Specular Layer section and click the colored block. In the window that comes up set the 

following values Red = 214, Green = 214, Blue = 66 and click the Close button.

 

Apply the material to our Teapot, render, and behold the pretty, brass teapot.

 

 

Bronze

 

Click the colored block next to Diffuse and in the window that opens set the following values Red = 134, Green = 61, Blue = 

42 and click the Close Button.

 

In the First Specular Layer section click the colored box and in the window that opens set the following values Red = 144, 

Green = 73, Blue = 41 and click the Close button.

 

In the Second Specular Layer section click the colored box and in the window that opens set the following values Red = 196, 

Green = 103, Blue = 46 and click the Close button.

 

Once again apply the material to the Teapot and render for a beautiful Bronze teapot.

 

Now onto Silver and Platinum

Silver and Platinum 

Silver and Platinum are a little different than the other metals so far and we need to change a few more settings besides 

the colors to get the metal we are looking for.

 

 

Silver

 

First we will change the colors. Click the colored box next to Diffuse and set the following values Red = 255, Green = 255, 

Blue = 255 and then click the Close button

 

In the First Specular Layer section click the colored box and in the window that opens set the following values Red = 201, 

Green = 201, Blue = 201 and click the Close button. Still in the First Specular Layer section change Glossiness to 50.

 

In the Second Specular Layer section click the colored box and in the window that opens set the following values Red = 201, 

Green = 201, Blue = 201 and click the Close button. Still in the Second Specular Layer section change Glossiness to 50.

 

Scroll down to the Maps rollout and click the map we put into the Reflection slot earlier. Click the first colored block and in 

the window that opens set the following values Red = 77, Green = 77, Blue = 77 and click the close button. Now copy the 

Raytrace map we put into the map slot next to the second color and paste it into the slot that says None just above it.

 

Now once again apply the material to the Teapot and render the scene for shiny silver teapot.

 

 

Platinum

 

Platinum is very close to silver in color, it is just a bit washed out in comparison. The colors all stay the same this time so 

dont change them from the silver settings. In the First Specular Layer and Second Specular Layer sections change the 

Glossiness to 10.

 

In the Extended Parameters rollout set the Dim Level in the Reflection Dimming section to 0.5.

 

Down in the Maps section click the Falloff map in the Reflection slot and click the top colored block and in the window that 

opens set the following values Red = 230, Green = 230, Blue = 230 and click the Close button.

 

Now yet again apply the material to the Teapot and render and behold the platinum teapot.