Introduction.

This material is a light, brushed golden material that has hints of an environment. It can be used for a number of different metals, just changing the base colour of the material to suit the result you want. It's not as reflective as chrome or highly polished metal, so gives you a bit more control over the colour of the result.

Load up the file 'ringmask.psd'. This file contains the ring from which the selection set to create the material samples was generated.

If you loaded the ringmask file, you can Ctrl/Cmd-Click the layer with the ring to select it. If you didn't, create a new selection for the bevel.

Before you launch ShapeShifter, make sure you have selected a new layer. This will create the bevel without anything behind it. If you have something, say the black ring mask in the background, you might find the edges of the object appear blocky after you apply. This is because the edges are antialiased, and if something is beneath them the antialiasing will appear odd.

When you launch ShapeShifter, you will be presented with the default settings. These settings need to be adjusted for the metal effect we want. Most of the adjustments will take place in the Environment panel where we can change the type of material, the properties of the tinting, and add environment maps. We also need to make some adjustments to the 3D Lighting panel to make the metal a bit richer. If you wish, you can load in the Simple Gold Preset from the tutorial's preset file. The rest of this tutorial assumes that you don't do that.

Note: Depending on the selection you have when launching, you may need to adjust the Bevel Scale in the Main Shape panel to prevent it bevelling too far. Ideally, you want a bevel that looks like a rounded shape and does not 'meet' in the centre causing sharp ridges.

The Environment panel contains most of the controls we need to look at for this material. The first thing to do is adjust the colour to match our gold. This is done using the Colour Picker thumbnail to the right of the Environment panel preview.

By clicking and dragging over the colour picker, select a medium brightness orange. We can always change this later if it seems too dark or bright.

Once we've done that, let's quickly make sure that the rest of the sliders on that panel are in the right position.

• Set 'Mix Tinting Color' to full, we don't want anything from underneath interfering with the metal's colour.
• Make sure 'Internal Reflection' is completely off (all the way to the left). That slider is used for glassy materials.

The other sliders don't matter at this point. But we do need to make sure that the button above the Colour Picker thumbnail reads 'Metal'. Click it if it reads 'Plastic'. When this is set to Metal, the surface is treated as if it was metallic. Metal surfaces reflect light differently to plastic surfaces. You will notice with a metal surface that highlights from your lights are usually coloured by the object's colour, while plastic ones just go white.

We need to load an environment map while we're here too. Although this Gold doesn't rely on it, highly reflective surfaces need environment maps or they don't imply reflection.

• Select 'Import Environment Map' from the Environment panel menu.
• In the file open dialog, locate and load the file 'simplegoldenv.jpg' that came with this tutorial. If you do not have that file, load in an environment map that is tinted yellow/gold.

Once this is loaded, turn down the 'Mix Environment' slider on the Environment panel to about 25%. This gives us a hint of an environment without overpowering the colour.

Up 'till now we've been using the default lights. As a finishing touch, we should go in and adjust the lighting to highlight some of the gold.

At this stage, we could create any one of a number of different types of gold just by changing the lights around. Lighting can create a brushed look, a highly polished look, dull discoloured metals, and any number of other effects.

For now, we'll create a simple gold by adding just two lights.

• If you have lights already, delete them by selecting them in turn and hitting the Delete key. If the Ambient Glow slider is set above 0, set it back to 0. This gives us a completely black bevel, ready for new lights.
• Add a new light and set it as follows: Light Brightness at 50%, Highlight Sheen at about 70%, Highlight Spread at 97%. Make sure that it is a diffuse light (the sharp/diffuse highlight indicator should have the blurred spot lighter).
• Move the light to the top left region of the light preview.

We could stop at this point, the gold should look something like this. Let's add one more light to highlight the opposite side.

• Add a new light and set it as follows: Light Brightness at 22%, Highlight Sheen at 45%, Highlight Spread at 97%. Make sure this is also a diffuse light.
• Move this light to the bottom right, opposite the first one.

This gives us a second highlight, more subtle than the first but still lighting the surface.

You're done making simple gold now. By tweaking the lights you can create other effects as well. Try changing the highlight type of the lights to sharp instead of diffuse, and playing around with their brightness. Changing their colour can also produce some interesting effects.