Does "Lighting Model" do anything?

Scavenger

I was playing with an iPhone prop from ShareCG..making a new color skin for it... Gold...so I thought I'd see if "Lighting Model" Model might make it look more metal...

Right here, it's only with the default light with Spot Render, but I don't see any differences..

Plastic:

Metal:

Glossy Metal:

I'm guessing the setting does something other than what I think it does?

Richard Haseltine

Lighting model actually changes the shader used, in effect. The most noticeable effects tend to be the way specularity behaves, and there isn't much specularity in your images. Skin also adds some SSS, but since the settings for shader-specific parameters are locked and it tends to give a reddish cast (I'm told, by those who can see such things) it isn't often used.

Fisty

Plastic gives a base line specular highlight, somewhat fuzzy on the edges. Glossy plastic gives a very sharp highlight, it becomes smaller as well so your glossiness setting needs be lower on that one than if you are using plastic (this is the best one for shiny metal surfaces). Metallic gives a fuzzy edged highlight and takes the color from the diffuse, so your gold object would have a fuzzy slightly lighter gold colored highlight, because it uses the diffuse color it 's really not good for use on dark colored objects as you won't get much if any specular off of them) Skin is kind of in between plastic and metallic as far as fuzziness goes, it also adds a a bit of red to overall color, As Richard said it's rarely used as there are other shaders available for skin that do a better job.

Fisty

Glossy metallic is a very sharp edged highlight taken from the diffuse color.. also not often used as glossy plastic gives more control over the color and strength.

Richard Haseltine

The metallics can be good for hair and fur, as long as there's a decent bump map.

Fisty

ahh.. good idea.. though I use uber surface for those so I can turn off AO if I need to.