Anyway, I'm still on this quest for brushed stainless steel... Why? I don't know.. :) But be that as it may, due to the peculiarities of Vue I get the following results... If you look at the cube, it kinda has that effect, but it doesn't look like metal.. If you minimize the bump, it looks worse and worse... Now look at the tea kettle.. I have to minimize the bump immensely to get something kinda natural looking.. Look at the reflections.. Even if I put reflections at zero and highlights at next to nothing, I get no change, same reflection... Even though the material is mapped for a cylinder, it doesn't look at that good... I made the texture in photopaint and brought it into vue, forget about usign procedural textures... So, does anybody have a clue as to how to make brushed stainless steel that looks like the real thing whether on an flat surface or a cylindrical surface... Any info appreciated, thanks...

Now, of course, after I put up the post, the reflections in the pot decided to go away and be normal.. So that part is not a problem... But it still doesn't look like stainless steel... :)

Could you put up a photo of stainless steel to compare it to?

Ok, here is the closest I could find, not great, but gives an idea... Notice how fine the effect is and notice also how the light reflects off it...That's how brushed stainless steel or aluminum look like in real life... Somehwo this isn't happening in Vue...

Just so you know, I've changed the size of the texture, scaled the x & y axis, minimized and scaled the bump, scaled the image, scaled the texture, and instead of it becoming smaller and thinner, it gives a completely different effect, it loses the lines, it becomes something else...

First thing I might suggest would be to lighten the texture a bit, as the picture of the stainless steel seems a few shades of gray lighter than what you have in your pitcher...closer to the the highlight on it. But after reading of your problem with stainless steel you posted last week, I spent several hours on Sunday trying to get a good stainless steel, and my closest efforts were about the same as yours. The silver material which comes with Vue seems to be almost there, but not quite...too shiny, too reflective, wrong highlights. Beats me! Maybe the makers of vue had a bad experience with stainless steel somewhere and ruled it out. ;)

Hi Mike, long time no see.. Thanks for your reply, basically, the reason that it gets dark is the bump, the bump darkens things up considerably... Even though the example picture is light, I was just using it to show the texture and the way light reflects off it... The one that i got on the teapot was the closest I got it... :) So yeah, maybe it's something that Vue is not up to... And maybe the makers of Vue did have that bad experience... :) sorry to hear that your efforts weren't rewarded, I thought maybe it was me alone... Maybe that should be next month's challenge, make a convincing brushed stainless steel - aluminum texture... :)

Here's my try at it. Totally procedural with no bump. I used variable reflections with a function made from scratch (I used the layer type "fabric") and strong blurring. I found that using a bump map made the it look too rough, even when it was scaled way down. I hope this helps. -Aaron

It seems that brushed steel is the new black so I might as well throw in my attempt. Uses a bitmap for the texture, bump (just a tiny amount) and as a filter for the variable highlights. Damned if I can ever get metal to look good on a flat surface though. guitarzan seems to have nailed the kettle's material exactly.

yup, quiterzan's looks almost like the real thing.

Wow, this is fantastic.. You guys did a great job... I knew somebody else out there could do a great job of this, thanks very much for doing this...

nice examples all three but yeah guitarzans is virtualy spot on, nice one.