Hi, I am kinda new to lighting and such in maya but here is a breakdown of what I have, and where I want to go with it.

What I have…
I have the word SKI in my work area and I have it animated by rotating and having it zoom into the camera. The camera is stationary and its just the text moving. I have a basic 3 point light system set up with an ambient light. I have the word with 2 blinn materials, one for each color on the word ( I have a different colored stroke around the type.) Now the main color on the 3D type is yellow. I was advised to make a reflection dome and I have the dome made and with a ramp blinn assigned to it and that is as far as I am.

Where I want to go…
I basically just want the text to look like it is reflecting its environment. Nothing too crazy, just so the type is not just yellow and somewhat blown out. I am not really going for a “material” look but I would say maybe something like glass if I had to say something or maybe shiny/reflective plastic.

Any tips would be sweet!!!
thanks

first of all why u r using the ambient light?
its now not in cg industry
it will make ur scene totally flat.
as far as the reflections are concerned
go for an environment utility
drop an hdri image on the reflected color of ur blinn shader.
give some dark color to the blinn by letting down its diffuse value.

check the option Raytrace in global render set up for maya.

MAYA My love

yeah, i would agree that an ambient light isn’t a good solution. i’m not sure how far into maya you are, but if you are comfortable rendering with mental ray, i would go for an very contrasty HDRI. if not, it’s never too early to start and the new mental ray “material_x” is easy to use and provides physically accurate renders.

the most important thing to think of is this: you can’t expect reflections to show up out of nowhere. for the glass look you’re looking for, keep in mind that what makes it look like glass is what the glass is reflecting, not the glass itself. you can have physically accurate glass, but without something reflected in it, it doesn’t look like much of anything. just put some checkerboard textures in the scene somewhere and see what pops up in your reflections. that’ll give you an idea of what i’m talking about, at least. cheers.

here’s a link to the material_x user guide. it’s a big help.

http://www.mentalimages.com/fileadmin/user_upload/PDF/arch_and_design.pdf