Hi,
rusted wrote:in exterior glazing when using shinymetal do you use the mirror reflection part also?
Yes, and actually it provides the main contribution to the reflections (for transparent panels it's at ~0.25, and for opaque ones at ~0.35). Specular component with different roughness settings for transparent and opaque panels gives the last "depth" touch: higher the roughness -- more the light scattering, thus making you feel like there is a diffuse surface behind that panel.
rusted wrote:is it necessary -glazing doesnt seem to have that coating effect -using glossy wont be enough?
No it won't for the reason i outlined above -- you need
both the perfect reflection as well as rough reflection, so you'll still have to mix glossy with mirror (the new glossycoating+mirror is likely to give you the same result).
rusted wrote:your aluminum panels when seen in front look matte,shouldn't be more reflective?
That was a tricky choice. Environment map unfortunately doesn't provide the necessary contrast. If you pump the specularity and coating exponent up, it will look a bit better when viewed directly in front, but at grazing angles become almost a mirror due to Fresnel effect. On the other hand, these panels aren't really
that reflective, so my compromise was good enough, and the client was completely satisfied.
rusted wrote:if using shinymetal for glass for transparency we need to mix with null material?
In this case it's better to just use a regular glass with architectural option enabled. You can mix
that with shinymetal though if the glass is supposed to have an additional reflection film coating.
rusted wrote:in interiors how to you balance sunlight and interior lighting(set sky gain low?).
I either leave them at real settings or at most double the interior lighting gain if i really need to emphasize it. Please note that if the glass is toned or have a reflection coating (like was in this case), you'll have 20-30% less sunlight in the room in the first place.
rusted wrote:another problem i have is specular mats(flooring,wallpanel) get blown out near window areas,if i reduce specular then the shaded areas are not specular enough.your image(interiors) looks very balanced in lighting and reflections.
Can't say, sunlight splotches on the floor are overburnt in my images too, and this is ok, it's what anybody would expect to see on an interior shot in a sunny day. As to the settings, i always specify glossy specularity through IOR, this is more intuitive to me. For the glazed tiles it's simply a fused silica layer on top of a diffuse base, so the coating IOR is supposed to be at ~1.45 (various lacquer finishes for a wooden floor have more or less similar properties). Rough tiles can be around 1.2.