Rendering Question - Highlights and Reflections

I've been using IRender for sometime but have never been able to figure out Highlights and reflection settings.

I've started a ring model and would like to render a shiny metallic gold surface.

One of the best things that you can do to improve a rendering is to focus on the details such as highlights and reflections. It’s the details that can increase realism of a rendering and one detail that many users over look is adding reflection to all the materials in a model that need it. Not only that, but you must also apply the correct kind and the correct intensity of a reflection to a material.

Users normally apply reflections to the noticeable objects in a rendered scene such as a mirror but often forget about the small objects like a table top, or a door knob or other accessories. Spending time on these details can make the difference between a boring, flat image and an engaging, realistic one.

The reflections help to add realism to this model.

This is boring and flat without reflections.

The first secret of reflections is that you have to have something to reflect. You need something to reflect. With our Dynamic lighting option, we would place your ring in a forest with light filtering through the trees. (highlights and reflections only work if there is something to reflect.)
Second, you need to apply some reflection to the materials. Right click on the material in the model, and select "IRender-Edit or Create material"
Then render the model for 20 passes or so.
You can make changes depending on what effect you are looking for.

1 Reflection examples
2 Default Settings
3 Reflections Tab
4 See also

Reflection examples

Here is a ring from the 3D Warehouse, I set it as reflective, using default settings, and rendered it.

Because it appeared somewhat dark, I increased the overall brightness of the rendering by one click, (from 50 to 60)

Then I used the IRender nXt texture paintbrush icon to place a gold-satin texture on the surface and rendered it again (increasing brightness to 60)

Default Settings

Material Defaults

For many standard materials, you can use one of the Material Defaults on the left of the Material Wizard:

Matte - no reflection, transparency or special properties
Thin or Thick Glass - 90% transparent.

Thin should be used for glass created with a single face.

Thick should be used for glass with two faces - one for each side.

Plastic - low transparency, and somewhat blurry
Reflective - medium reflection
Metal - highly reflective, with Metallic highlights.
Mirror - 100% reflective
Shade - creates a Translucent lamp shade
Glow - creates a material which glows like a light

Reflective Default

Reflective Default - Reflection: 0.60 Shininess: 0.90
Notice that reflections are just a little out of focus.
Note: The wood is also the Reflective Default but with Intensity changed to 0.30