Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!pyramid!prls!mips!hansen
From: hansen@mips.COM (Craig Hansen)
Newsgroups: comp.graphics
Subject: Re: silver color
Message-ID: <1487@mips.mips.COM>
Date: 4 Feb 88 04:39:32 GMT
References: <2679@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> <2029@bsu-cs.UUCP>
Lines: 24

In article <2679@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU>, tada@athena.mit.edu (Ivan Tadayoff) writes:
> Does anyone know what values of RGB to use to make a nice looking silver?
> (as in a metallic object?)  I've tried a variety of combinations and none 
> of them seem very pleasing.
> 
> While on the subject, does anyone know a good book on how to color ray-
> tracing views?  For example, how much does a light ray change when it
> reflects off a metallic sphere?  
> 
> Thanks in advance for any help.

The important feature to note is that a flat shade isn't going to look
silver. If you add specular reflections, it will make a dramatic difference
between a silver-colored plastic-appearing object and a silver-matallic object.
The color of the specular reflection, unlike the diffuse reflection is
generally the color of the light source, not the color of the object.
[This is a simplification, there are much more sophisticated metallic
color models. I think there was a SigGraph paper by Cook and Torrance
that covered this well.]

-- 
Craig Hansen
Manager, Architecture Development
MIPS Computer Systems, Inc.
...{ames,decwrl,prls}!mips!hansen or hansen@mips.com   408-991-0234