Using realistic materials

I mentioned a few times that Lux provides physics-based materials. Let's see how some of those work. The following scene uses the same elements that we have seen in the previous chapter: the Throne of the Skeleton King environment and one V4 figure with the Historical Armor suit:

If we look at the rendering of the metal of the armor or the blade of the sword, we see a realism that is unreachable with Studio's renderer. The reflections on the sword are so faithful, so perfect, to make us believe that we are looking at a photo.

If we look at the Studio definition for one of the materials of the suit of armor, we see that it's composed of a very long list of properties. I have created the following composite just to show all the properties in one single screen:

The list is in fact so long that it doesn't fit on a 30-inch display. Despite being so complex, this shader does not produce a convincing emulation of metal.

In comparison, the Reality metal material is disarmingly...