Expert: Andre Hickman - 1/14/2006

Question
Heloo Mr Andre...hope u r fine..i was just wonderin if u can tell me the material values/ settiings for a plastic water bottle.i hav been tryin hard for last few days but not getting desired result. heard bout ur site so thought may be u can help me. thanx. hope to c a reply soon ....bye n take care..

Answer
Hey Manas,

I've never even tried to do one, but here goes nothing (I'm attempting as I type)...Are there any special requests on the type of material to use? (i.e. does it have to be a 'true' raytrace in seeing through the bottle, or can it be faked?

Here is one quick method, which will probably require tweaking.  I'm assuming you are talking about 3D Max...

-Use a standard material in the material browser.
-turn your shader to 'Anisotropic.'
-make the diffuse color 157,170,181
-open up the 'extended parameters' and copy that color into the 'filter' color.  select falloff to 'In' and set to about 60. set the Index of Refraction to 1.66
-set specular level to 85, glossiness to 30, and leave anisotropy at 50.
-now go down to your maps...
-put a new 'reflect/refract' map in the refraction slot. Set the value to 50
-put a new 'reflect/refract' map in the reflection slot.  Then click on the map type, and change it to a 'falloff' map.  when asked, keep the current map as a submap. Change the falloff type to 'Fresnel.'  go back out and set the reflection value to 40.

Those steps should give you a descent looking bottle plastic.  I didn't really try to put the plastic in a scene, I just used the material browser. You may have to tweak the colors, etc and settings, to get your desired outcome.  This is more of a "faked" process.  If you require a true raytrace material, then we can go back and try to come up with one.



Cheers,
Andre'

I tried that in a scene, and it may not give you what you need. try placing 'Raytrace' maps instead of 'reflect/refract' maps, or simply don't use a map at all in the Refract slot...