How to make a wet/reflective surface?

[Oaneyl]

Hi,

  I'm creating a kind of "cyberpunk" street and would like to make my wall reflective or a bit wet, as if it had rained on it and it was drying, to add some lights reflecting on the wall, for example such as this example below. Would you have any idea concerning the way to make the wall a little bit reflective? Thank you in advance !

[Mylenium]

And using what? You're being vague.

Mylenium

[Oaneyl]

Thank you for your answer. I'd like to use After Effects, I don't need to create all the 3D stuff, I just need to modify my texture to make it look like a shiny/wet wall actually. I guess I have something to do with curves/ highlight some parts, add colors on the wall, but I'm getting trouble finding a way to make my texture a little bit reflective on some areas actually, I don't really know how to manage the curves and so on. If I need a plugin to get this result, I must be able to use it as well, it's not a problem.

Thank you in advance.

[Szalam]

I don't know what you mean. Those walls don't look wet to me. (There is a puddle on the ground though.) There are settings in AE if you have 3d layers to adjust the specular highlights that will make things look more reflective. But, as Mylenium says, your question is a bit too vague.

[Oaneyl]

Thank you for your answer. Actually, the wall looks a little bit wet to me, as if rain was drying on it, but yes I guess it's shiny, not that wet. Yes, I guess I have something to do with something like curves/ highlights/ specular lights, but I don't know how to do. I mean, there are so much possibilities in AE that I don't know which ones would be the more credible in this situation. My question is basically, I have a texture I want to use as a wall (I just need a background to make a slideshow actually, but I want it to have a "cyberpunk" look), to make it more credible, I want the wall to be a little bit dirty (added damages on it already) and wet/shiny as in the picture.

To do such a thing I would need to modify the look of my texture with effects or plugins, but I don't know which ones, do I have to use curves, 3D plug-ins or effects, which kind of settings do I have to do (do I have to increase/decrease something? Enable/Disable something?)

My question is in AE, how do we make a surface a little bit shiny?

I'm sorry for having been to vague, I hope it's clear now, english isn't my native language as well

Thank you in advance !

[Mylenium]

You are asking about technical processes and methods when all there is to it is applying painterly knowledge. Wet surfaces get darker and more glossy since the water closes up micro pores and changes light absorption. There's a million ways to simulate this, but of course you won't find a simple one-click solution. You will have to mix and blend multiple layers and mask them out accordingly. E.g. you can create glossy highlights with CC Glass or an inverted Find Edges effect, but you still need to experiment with blending modes and colorization. Likewise, any dirt/ grime or water drizzling down the wall will require other layers with different settings. It's realyl more about that, not finding some cool effect.

Mylenium

[kirkeric]

As the others have said, there are numerous ways to do this but a lot just boils down to lighting, adding highlights, and adding effects.

If you want to get in to some pretty realistic water, you can use this VC tutorial and maybe with some adjustments, get a more static wet rather than it dripping like this.

https://youtu.be/GLwpCNil3XE

Eric

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hi Oaneyl,

What did you end up doing to solve this issue? Did advice from our experts help at all?

Thanks,

Kevin