New Chrome-Effects with ReflectionMaps

**molucca** · 05 January 2009, 08:15 AM

EC/E3

I made an E3 environment in EC.

Rich

**molucca** · 05 January 2009, 02:56 PM

Trying a few more things.

Rich

**molucca** · 05 January 2009, 05:38 PM

A few more environments in JPG. The program seems to like uncompressed TIFs.

Rich

**CMONE** · 05 January 2009, 07:24 PM

Very nice Effects

Here my 3D-Reflections Rendering Effect

I'am used Border Chrom effect and then 3D.

Greetings
CMONE

**molucca** · 06 January 2009, 11:01 AM

A blend of map filled text.

Rich

**molucca** · 06 January 2009, 03:08 PM

Added another bezel.

Rich

**molucca** · 06 January 2009, 05:02 PM

XXP & EC. Contours

**Jimi King** · 06 January 2009, 09:42 PM

I downloaded the zip on the first post and tried to recreate the bottom left (overlayed) one, but couldn't get it to work for me.

To be honest I'm still happiest with the chrome lettering effect I posted up in another thread on this subject. I have, I think, managed to improve on it slightly after looking at a Photoshop tutorial on chrome lettering. There aren't enough hours in the day for me to bother attempting such a thing in Photoshop (give me Xara any day), but I did notice on the tutorial in question that the gradient on the face of the letters seems to go from a very slight grey down to white and then a fairly drastic fade into a darker grey. Seems to give the most realistic effect IMO.

**CMONE** · 06 January 2009, 11:24 PM

Thats Correct, your Example is Perfect.

But the Live Effect is good enough for me.
You can use the Chrome-Effect for other Clipart.

Here a quick example with mixed Chrome-Effect and overlay Gradient like your Example.

1. poor Chrome-Effect
2. Chrome-Effect with overlay the Gradient
3. poor Gradient
4. Example with Chrome-Effect an Clipart

**Jimi King** · 07 January 2009, 01:06 AM

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.