Metal Shader

Metal shading provides realistic-looking metallic surfaces and a variety of organic-looking materials.

• Material Editor > Standard Material > Shader Basic Parameters rollout > Choose Metal from the drop-down list.
• Material Editor > Raytrace Material > Raytrace Basic Parameters rollout > Shading drop-down list > Choose Metal.

Metal shading has a distinct curve for specular highlights. Metal surfaces also have glancing highlights. Metal materials calculate their own specular color, which can vary between the material's diffuse color and the color of the light. You can't set a metal material's specular color.

Metal shading has distinctive highlights.

Because there's no separate specular highlight, the two specular highlight spinners behave differently than the spinners for Blinn and Phong shading. The Specular Level spinner still controls intensity, but the Glossiness spinner affects both the intensity and size of the specular areas.