Cannot get the shading right of a key cap I am designing

[ponas]

Hi all,

I have been at this for a while and cannot figure out how can I replicate this keycap design that I have. I have been playing around with Bevel&Emboss, gradeint overlay and other things that I cannot remember, but it still looks completely terrible to the reference image. Does someone have any pointers in what I can do to make it look nice, I cannot accomplish the depth, nor the lighting spot on... 

[c.pfaffenbichler]

I think that appearance is way too complicated to be approximated with Layer Styles on one Layer. 

[Chuck Uebele]

I would agree that it's too complicated a shape for layer styles. Frankly, Illustrator's mesh gradient would be ideal for this.

[Trevor.Dennis · Accepted solution]

You need to use two layers because Bevel & Emboss is not one of the Layer Styles we can stack

So lower layer, which is the outer bevel

Upper layer, which is the shallow inner depression.

Things to note with this:

The low value Depth which I have at 63%, and the Altitude.  Both make a big difference.

Note I have a layer mask which is the exact size of the layer.

This prevents spill from the Pillow Emboss.

I have 'Layer mask hides effect' checked in Layer Style panel.

This layer started as a shape, but the outline was too sharp, so I rasterized and blurred it a touch.

[Trevor.Dennis]

Note: you can't save multiple layers as a layer style, but when I create something like this, I like to combine the layers as Smart Object, and save it to a Creative Cloud Library.  I mentioned rasterizing the upper layer so I could blur its outline.  I would like to have made that layer a Smart Object before adding the layer style, so I could save the combined layers to a CC Library maintaining the contents as vector objects.

[EDIT]  If you are interested in these sort of effects, you might like to follow the TextureLabs YouTube channel.

[Trevor.Dennis]