Well thanks but mine is far from perfect.
I think that it's possible to get many believable chrome effects using a variety of reflection maps. It's the front face that's the hard bit. Your second example has a different reflection map but with that gradient it works just as well.
The reflection map I used is based on the outdoor.tif that comes with the Alien Skin Chrome filter. I just repainted the green and brown colours to blue and grey and saved it as an alternative file. It just seemed to fit better with a chrome finish for me.
Here's the map that I ended up with. It looks silly as a bitmap, but I like it for my chrome edges.
Bookmarks