I reviewed Yves suggestions as posted (in another topic which shall remain nameless to protect me) with respect to settings for specular color for reflective surfaces & did a little test.

To summarize what I believe Yves was saying was to 1) don't use specular color (make it not set), only use diffuse color & 2) only use 100 % reflective filter (& 100% blend).

So I did a quick settings change on just tinmans pants & did a test with my vanilla lighting setup (85% white, 20% orange, 45% blue). The result was so-so. Liveable, but not what I'd prefer. See image.

I like using specular colors. It adds an extra pizazzy interesting dimension to reflective & shiny surfaces. I like having the reflections on the surface colored/tinted by the specular color - but not at 100% reflective filter. 25% seems to look good. I like the reflective surfaces to retain the coloring of either it's diffuse color or decal, so thus 50% reflectivity seems to produce a nice blend.

Those are the values I was using for the shoulder pads & torso & leggings - seemed to look good in my renders, Colin's, Yves wip - except maybe for the legs? which looked like the spec color, or settings had been changed? or else it was the lighting that confused me. Bolts, heart door, eyebrows were funny in Colin's and Yves because of erroneous settings on my part.

So what I did to cleanup Tinman (and uploaded this morning):

1) changed bolts, heart door, brows to have the same type of settings as the other items, ie set a spec color that I liked, made those surfaces all 50% reflective, 25% filter. I hope I got everything I wanted. I hope that fixes the issues.

2) changed all values (again, I hope) that had 0 or 255 in any RGB component to be at least 10 or 250. The color picker in A:M makes it too easy for slobs like me to be lazy about correcting the values, and too hard to get a palette.

3) fixed a decaling problem (sorta) on tinmans torso that got somehow lost? maybe in the conflict resolution? Who knows. Who cares.

4) I did not touch his tin "skin" because I'm not aware of what the settings are that y'all have been using. I don't care about his skin - do with it whatever is best. Or let me know & I'll change it.

I hope we can all work with those settings. If it presents truly a technical problem, then someone can change it. I don't think these settings will present a subjective artistic problem from my point of view. I ain't gonna open my mouth again, as I'm going to try and let go of all this. This is too painful.

I repeat: I understand the colors will not look the same in different colored lighting situations - but I at least wanted to get it the way I'd prefer in sorta balanced white light. It took me lots & lots & lots of time. I did it for closure.

I did not go back and change things back into materials. That is not the way I work. I prefer to set colors in the groups, because it is easy visual cue for me to see what groups I've changed & I hate having to expand materials because of the extra layers of clicking, just to see the color. I understand the theory of why someone might want to do it that way. It doesn't work for me. If I ever do cleanup (which I don't always do), I would regroup all those groups that have the same settings, I would still not make materials. That is the way I work.

Yours truly, Nancy "Slobby Free Spirit" Gormezano

Hi Nancy,

A thought occurred to me, it might be helpful. The Specular setting fakes the glint of a bright light, so if we stopped using the Specular setting on Tinman for the sake of good metal reflections, shouldn't the same look be achievable by actually putting an appropriately colored light in close enough proximity and intensity to Tinman so the Reflections show that glint the same way as the Specular faked it?

And if this works, then Tinman might have one or two Lights for this purpose always constrained to him, and in a Light List so it only shines on him, his own personal lighting that travels with him.

Just food for thought.

-Jim

Interesting thought, but I believe that probably complicates things unnecessarily. Tinman has different colored specular settings for different groups. I don't see a need for that kind of light list (for other reasons, yes)

The settings currently have the potential of looking artistic. I wasn't going for realistic.

I like glints of colored light on colored reflective surfaces. Try it. make a black sphere, make its specular color a saturated purple, red, green, or gold, with 100% size, intensity. To me this is a much more interesting black. Adding reflectivity & using the specular color to tint the reflection is even more interesting to me. Then light this "sphere from another planet" in different colored lighting - still interesting. Add embossing - even more interesting. Add abstract decals, even nicer. Play with percent reflectivity & % filter - even more fun. That is, fun for me.

It is my opinion that the reflections, specularity will look fine the way they are in all lighting situations. Except for the "skin" which should be tweaked more from the settings that I set. I think the lighting people have got a handle on it.

If it proves disruptive or not artistically pleasing (judged by who?), then it can be dumbed down, or loaded down with tricks to squeeze all the nasty make-believe out of it.

Wait, wait...I know! I know!

Maybe the whole movie should be in black & white! That will solve everything.

Truth is I also think that would be interesting - the black & white thing - could be for the flashback sequences, or for all sequences up until Woot enters the castle - as an artistic device mimicing & paying homage to the the original Wizard of OZ movie. The vibrant coloring could come when the door opens to the castle, or woot goes in.

There are so many styles this movie could have been done in. Our problem is that we have too many styles. And my styles are very bold. And some nutcase kept bugging me because no one else would do it.