The Metal Reflection Shader plug-in lights objects with a highlight and by the reflection of the surrounding (from a cube map).

Both highlight and reflection take into account the material color of the object to generate a realistic metal effect.

Metal Reflection Shader Properties

• Environment Reflectivity: Manipulates the influence of the reflection color from the environment map on the resulting color.

• Reflection Multiplier/Exposure: Affects the exposure of the environment map. This is especially helpful when working with HDR images.

• Gamma of EnvMaps: Controls the gamma correction of the environment map. This is once again particularly helpful when working with HDR images.

• Environment Map: Is a cube map that describes the environmental surrounding used to calculate reflections.

Metal Reflection Shader Best Practices

Apart from the parameters in the plug-in container, it is necessary to assign a material and a texture as a color/basic texture. Do not forget to adjust material parameters in addition, such as ambient, diffuse, specular color and shininess, to achieve the required look for your surface. To achieve a photo realistic, metallic look, it is recommended to assign any color but white as a specular color.