Here’s an example of various materials and how i render them.
- Cloth – Hardly any speculars, just shadow and light. Sometimes strong light can penetrate thin cloth and cause some sort of subsurface scattering.
- Leather – Can be a little gloss and thus have a few speculars. Also, don’t make it too saturated.
- Trees and wood – Dull. Not very saturated either (sort of grey-brown-sienna).
- Stone – A bit like cloth. The surface is often to rugged (both at micro and macro levels) to have any serious speculars.
- Plastic – It seems like the speculars and reflections are colorized in the color of the plastic. Plastic can also be a bit transparent.
- Gold – Gold isn’t orange. I use black – desaturated orange sometims with hints of green, then up to yellow and white.
- Silver – More or less like a mirror.
- Metal – In the case of armours I often push the values a little more, not as much midtones.
- Brushed metal – It’s sort of like an inbetween of a grey surface and a silver surface.
- Glass – Often just transparent with distortion. The speculars come suddenly and are often white. In the case of car windows you might have noticed that it’s easier ot see what’s behind if there’s a shadow over the window. The brighter reflections obscure.
- Wet stuff – more speculars, can become transparent in the case of cloth, and stones get more saturated and pronounced details.
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