I keep getting some pretty cool textures while working on this though L:D
http://www.sikcustompaint.com/metallic_pearl_series.html
There are some cool paints there. See how even in the powder form they are kinda of reflective and color shifting.

You can make the patterns or textures look more metalic by adding a reflection.Those pearl images you linked to have lighting added too.

You add a reflection by opening an image of say trees on top of the pattern and set the top trees layer opacity real low.

You also have to remember that the light also gets swirled inside the paint. Does anyone have a mother of pearl pattern, can't find any. Too exhausted to look to far.

Here is a pretty good texture website.I use it all the time.
http://www.cgtextures.com/

Ok guys, here is what we have to come up with to get our metallic paint. I went into some body shops to watch some video's on the steps of painting cars with metallic.
It shows several layers, one of the layers near the top is pure transparent paint above the metallic specks.This is a very good example what we are going for.



BTW, I didn't do the above, just colorized the one.

Wow! Molly those are georgeous! I hope you saved the xcf cuz I'ld like to see your layers. I think he is looking for more of a pearlesence with an almost irridescent shimmer and more of a metallic look (super fine) as opposed to metal flake which looks more like glitter. The ones I did are basically a lot of tiny white dots in varying sizes and opacity to try and simulate glitter, which is more like the metal flake paints and what you have here.

I spent about an hour yesterday searching for textures and even visited several automotive paint sites to get a better picture in my head. the pic I have here has more of a swirly pattern but you can see the subtle blending of the greys and whites and a couple of other colors required to get the effect.

One of the sites I visited explained that while metallic paints are viewed as the same color no matter what angle they are viewd from, pearlized paints tend to change color with a shadowing effect, depending on the view angle. Rod may be onto something with the reflections approach using a "pearl" type image. I'm not sure how you would "paint" with it. Maybe we could take our best pearl texture concoction and use the Gradient from Image" script to create the gradient, then tick the "use color from gradient" box in the brush tool dynamics.


Edit - Nope, just tried it. It only picks up the solid color and not the dots in the glitter pattern.

Gosh guys, I am sorry you are mis-informed. I didn't do them, I found that in a metallic car painting site and I colorized one of them. I just wish I did do them but looks to me like there will be several layers to make this look real

LOL! You could have just kept quiet and we'd never know.

Hey, it will just make us work harder to achieve it. LOL

I played with this a couple of years ago. I found that the only way to get the metallic effect was to lay down a layer of glitter texture (RGB noise) and then paint the color over on another layer. Then use the alpha of the painted layer to crop the glitter layer and merge the two layers together... or something like that. (It's been a while and I haven't used that effect since.)

I did something similar.

1. Made a green layer
2. Made a white layer above it with RGB noise @ .10 with the "Independent RGB" box unchecked and the "Correlated" box checked.
3. Inverted the noise layer and adjusted the levels to 0 on the left and 100 on the right.
4. Used Brush and set mode to color erase essentially making the layer transparent around all the noise dots.
5. Duplicated the layer 3 times and just changed the orientation. (rotate 90 degrees, flip vertically etc.)
6. Ran Gaussian blur at 1 on all the noise layers and merged everything.
7. Map>Map Object, selected sphere, adjusted the orientation and the rest was decoration. (shadows, highlights etc.)


Still looks more like metal flake than metallic or pearl.

That is very good Drac. best one yet. I think the shadows, reflections and lighting is what makes it. You could make it into a pattern and try it on a car, bike or motorcycle... I think it would be very effective.

Thanks Molly. I'm working on some. I forgot a step though in my previous post. Forgot to mention I merged all the layers before I did the map to sphere step. I'll go fix it now.

I was kinda waiting for Rod or someone to make that in between image of his and mine. All I can do is post the method I used for my post on making the glitter. I'll attach the steps. They are very brief for my use as a guide, to remember what I did, and in no way should it be considered a tut.


Edit - OK I revised it to be a little more accurate and understandable.

Jaw dropping! Molly that was the exact paint I was looking for. Drac Nicely done!
To both of you :
You see how the light completely determines the pixel coloration?!? That is true metallic paint right there! Now to see if I can recreate Drac's green to see if that works on my side. Nice job guys! Getting closer by the day! Now we have to figure out how to make this into a palette (hopefully!)!

Or what could be done is to make it a series of patterns in a category (for GURM and 2.8) and use a layer mask to (essentially paint the areas that are wanted). Then they could use lighting effects to create that "glow" (wrong word I think to describe it) or light points to create the "true metallic part". And after this is over if we can't do this part I will create a tut for it, take the work of your guys' shoulders L:D

PS: This little doodle "L:D" is just something I use. Its a ":D" with a mohawk or block cut, something along those lines.

A tute would be great ZWard117. You guys are doing all the work and I am doing the prodding. lol.

Can't wait to see it executed into a vehicle of some sort.

Trust me, will be putting on a vehicle of some sort, maybe like a motorcycle of some futuristic type L:D

Having a huge issue reading your instructions Drac. Hard to understand how you did the flaking? Can't figure out the layers part, there are three layer threes....

Drac .. I'm going to have to agree with Z here. The text file you posted was a bit on the confusing side. I started to do it and got to the point were your scaling a layer and I was totally lost. Especially when I read duplicate layer 4 times. I was like is that the 4th layer duplicate or do I make 4 copies of that layer.

Please please please fix it? If your graphic example is true to the point then this a really simple effect with a nice wow factor!

Thank god I'm not the only one. Was starting to feel stupid...thanks for joining in MrBiggz.
Was trying to follow them but I couldn't figure it them.

Looks nice Draconian.