This material relies for much of its effect on the nature of its highlights. It uses the internal Bump settings to create interesting pools of lighter highlights on the surface.

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. The material we're about to work on is fairly complex so we'll need to change a number of the basic settings. If you wish, you can load in the Fiery 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 the first set of controls we need to look at. Right now, your material is probably looking blue, and if you applied to a flat layer it's probably also slightly transparent. Here, we're going to fix that and get one more step towards the effect we're after.

The most important thing we need to do here is set the surface type to Metal.

• If the Plastic/Metal thumbnail indicates 'Plastic', change it to Metal by clicking.

This setting means that the lights we shine on the surface will highlight to the colour selected, not white. The effect is to give us a much wider range of colours over the surface of the bevel.

Now let's correct the colour.

• Using the Color Tint thumbnail, click and drag to select a deep Red/Orange as your material colour. Use the image above as a guide for this, the Orange needs to be quite red or the effect won't work..
• Make sure the Mix Tinting Color slider is set all the way to the right. This means you won't get any colour from the image underneath the bevel.

The deep orange will be darker where there is normal light shining on it, but get very bright (eventually turning white, but far slower than with a Plastic surface) as highlights are shone on it.

The Environment settings we changed will only become really obvious when we have added a number of brightly highlighting lights. This material uses four lights with sharp highlights to produce the desired effect.

The first thing to do is delete all of the existing lights.

The fiery nature of the material is completed by adding a Bump map. The lumps in the surface change how the lights interact with it, large lumps creating ridges that face one light but not another, and dips that are almost unlit by the bright highlights.

• In the bump panel's type menu (underneath the bump preview) select the 'Swirls' type.
• Set the Bump Scale to 33% and the Bump Height to 93%.

The Bump Scale should be adjusted depending on how it looks on the selection you are using. The effect you are aiming for is small but not tiny swirls over the surface. Adjust the Scale and Height to see how the highlights change as the surface ripples more and less.

Using Highlights and Metal materials you can create all sorts of interesting results. Try changing the colour of one of the main highlight lights (the ones at the top left and bottom right). This will tint various areas of the bevel where the bumps are facing in the right direction.