Materials- in the making… kind of….
Ok, step 1, open your shell, and, if you haven't already, select everything and click the attributes (A) button, then turn ON 'show as box' it will make movement much easier, now we will start with our underside, so, choose whatever color group you set your negatives (or one of your groups of negatives) to and click the Materials Lab (M) button
Now, this one I did easy, I wanted a gray blandish color, so, for my first texture component-bit I picked purple rox, click the top right arrow of the box, go down the list to rocks, and select Purple rox, and for the second texture go to rocks then to Alien Rock! now, for both of them go to the bottom right arrow and set it to random, then, hold down ctrl and click on the B column under the middle menu piece for diffuse ambient and specular, and set the specular halo to a dark color set the diffusion setting to 100, ambience to 58, and specularity to the A texture and at 100, set bump height to 35.5, and the A texture (sorry if this is confusing, if it is, check the picture) then finally set the reflection to A texture and 35.5. now you've finished 1 material.
On to the spike-bit, this I wanted to be in contrast with the iridescent color I had planned for the rest of the shell, so I went with dark colors, instead of explaining this one, use what you've learned and take from the picture. If you make your own, I suggest you make bright specular effects and a nice dark contrast with something interesting thrown in, and soft bumps.
Now, I use my typical apathetic plan and saved the hardest for last, if you've never -ever- used the deep texture editor before, I suggest you turn around now, and head for the hills, because, odds are, this'll hurt.
for this one, we'll jump right into the material lab with our 3rd texture group selected, click the reddish button next to the material box (see pic)
It will take you here.
Now, we go to our first component, and, to make this easy, I won't explain much, but give you the basic facts.
Select it, then click the noise button near the bottom, then click the large green corner of the noise bar, making sure that component 1 is selected. Now, copy what I've got here, to change the type click the name, same goes with mode and octaves.
Now, click the second ball on the noise bar to change to component 2 and copy whats on this pic.
Sorry for the bluntness of all this, but we've got 1 more step before we leave
now go to the arrow pointing from component 1 to component 2 and change it so that it says average.
Now, click the check mark to accept what you've done and move on with you life, back to the main section of the material editor. You can mess with it yourself, which is what I suggest, or take exactly what I've got here:
If you didn't get a word of that, I'm sure you aren't alone. This is where the download at the top of the page comes in handy.
I like how this turned out, since its an all new shell, but I don't like how tall it is, grr, so I'm going to group the whole thing and scale the Y
