What is the best shader method to make Abalone shell inlays shine?

I am trying to texture a jeweled round object similar to this one:


I can’t put the real thing on here because it’s not my design to share at the moment but it is very similar.

I want the abalone to shine the way it does in real life when the light hits it and moves around. If you’ve ever seen one it kind of has different pieces in it that shine depending on how the light hits it. I tried doing a specular map combined with the glossy but it doesn’t quite get the shine shimmer effect. The render just looks bright but if I move the light it doesn’t change. The surface needs to remain completely smooth. Any ideas?


Thinking of something off the top of my head, but not sure if it’d be right… (Rendering at the moment, so can’t test it out.)

Dot product of view vector and incoming(?) added to a factor output of a texture pattern which inputs to the factor of a color ramp gradient. As the value added to the noise changes with viewing angle of a surface, the color ramp gradient should shift. Then plug that into the color input of whatever seems appropriate.

I wouldn’t say it’d be perfect for the desired effect, but it might be an interesting thing to start out with and build on.

@Cegaton
what is the nodes group set up for last link
/uploads/default/original/4X/a/8/b/a8be149339fbdaeac4dad161dfe03a5af4e3b861.JPGd=1387900069

happy cycles

Have a look at this material on blendswap. Not exactly like your example -but it may give you some ideas.

anyone has found out the group node for the thread here

/uploads/default/original/4X/a/8/b/a8be149339fbdaeac4dad161dfe03a5af4e3b861.JPGd=1387900069

@Moony nacre mat is nice but takes for ever to render

thanks