[mrunion]

I was working on a quick little "joke" for some people at work and haven't invested more than a couple of hours on this, but....

The plastic, clear cover just doesn't look quite right in this picture. I basically modelled a pressure guage and I am wondering what would make the plasctic face look better.

Feel free to comment on anything else at all. This is only my second work in Lightwave (used to use Blender some -- liked it!). I don't wear my feelings on my sleeves, so if it looks like crap, just say so. All I ask is that you say *why* it looks like crap.

Note: The guage "case" is supposed to be a bluish, chrome texture. Also, I actually WANT a pristine, brand-new look to it, that's why I've put no scratches and dings on it. I plan to add those to a second picture of this item, thus completeing the "joke".

A larger image can be found here (and it's BIG -- 7MB! -- may want to right-click and "save as"):
Larger Image

[rich_is_bored]

Looks pretty good to me.

I think the only thing that might need a little work is the surface of the shaft that holds the needle.

I figure that wouldn't be very reflective. I'm thinking just plain dull steel would work better.

You might want to put a very subtle bevel on the edge of that shaft aswell. Its very rare to find a true sharp edge like that in the world.

[philip]

wee! another former Blender user! That's what I started out with back in the day...

well, back to the topic: the reason for the clear plastic not to look right is that you didn't render with refractions turned on or had your index of refraction set to 1.

To get realistic refractive surfaces, set the refraction to something other than 1 (1.5 to 1.66 for glass, 1.55 for Polystyrene), also you might want to make a copy of your glass/clear plastic surfaces, paste them into a new layer and flip them (hit "f"), then assign an "air" material to it: diffuse 0, spec 0 refraction 1. This way the lightrays get "bent back" when they exit the material.

Come render time, go to the render options and check raytrace refractions, set your ray recursion limit to something like 5 (the 2 air surfaces, 2 glass surfaces and one more) to speed up rendering.

Post a new version here

[Johnny9ball]

Here is a chart you can Bookmark its a refraction Index for different materials.

http://art-design.smsu.edu/yarberry/...ion/index.html

Here is a good tutorial on setting up glass or clear surfaces for refraction.

http://www.geocities.com/CollegePark/9315/lw/tip4.htm

[DigiMatt]

now you already have a good link to a refraction index, otherwise the book inside lightwave 7 has a very good one.. Its worth getting anyway cause it covers alot of other good stuff too.

[mrunion]

Thanks for all the help! I didn't do the refraction thing! That is probably what makes it look odd.

Cool!

[mrunion]

Oh! And it's nice to hear that other Blender users still lurk about....

[twisteddragon]

i think it looks very nice. i wish my second object was that smooth... and detailed. i cant even get textures to work right