REALISTIC GOLD EFFECTS
Notice that example #1 below is extremely flat looking. This is the standard
gold shader that comes with most 3D rendering programs. I also tried to
liven it up a little by adding 4 directional spotlights, but this still
was not enough. Hence Example#2.
For the added zing I added a bump map that I created in a paint program, like Photoshop to Example #2. Using the airbrush tool to add wide blended strokes in a diagonal direction on a black background. The strokes should not extend past the edges or you will get hard lines in the surface where the bump map is tiled together.
Then I used Photoshop to add the pinpoint sparkle to the P and the A.
As you can see the added zing brings the GOLD out a little more and adds
some depth to the image.
REALISTIC LIGHTING EFFECTS
Obviously this first picture is not a good one! But I am using this to show an example of the misconseption that people have of the GLOW function that is in most of the current 3D packages. The example below is a demonstration of how GLOW by itself, applied to a glass ball does not cast light and shadow properly. All three of these scenes were rendered with no direct lighting or ambient lighting.
To achieve the proper casting of light and shadows you must use point lights inside of the globes.
The example on the left shows clear glass globes with a very small amount of glow added to the glass shader and a point light inside of each globe. This visually looks very good and could be used successfully in any situation BUT...
In reality, if you looked at the street lamp in your neighborhood you would not be able to see the glass because of the lights brightness. So, in the example on the right I've added a slightly yellowish color to the glass shader and reduced the clearity of the glass, giving it a more frosted appearance.
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