how do you make metalhearts shiny/reflective/glossy?

thide

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maybe this is just because im a blender noob and its more of a generic 3d modelling quesiton.... but i want to make my metalhearts glossier or more seethru or w/e.. how do you guys put effects on them?
examples from desktopgeneration wallpapers:
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basically, i know how to make the model but i want to make it fancy :-D
 
Not part of DG but I dabble in metalheart and have spent a ton of time in Blender. (and am terminally online and check this place all the time :3)

Mixing Glossy and Transparent BSDFs
- Glossy, reflective, translucent, your options are limitless, but it all ties back to the basic shader editor.
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This glassy material is just a glossy and transparent shader mixed together.
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if I drop the mix shader all the way down and play with the roughness/color values, I have a really lazy metal texture.

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Play with anisotropy, roughness, and move the mix closer to transparent, and you have a cool frosted glass look. A lot of this can be done with the default Principled BSDF too, but this is easier for me to work with.

Especially with reflective or transparent materials, having some sort of textured lighting really helps. I keep a stockpile of free HDRI environment textures from Polyhaven around for stuff like this. https://polyhaven.com/

I'm a big fan of Ian Hubert's Lazy Tutorial Series for learning Blender. It's more applicable to general modeling and VFX workflows, but there are a lot of excellent shortcuts in there for more complex features like the UV editor, shader editor, modeling workflows, etc. I learned most of my Blender from watching those and experimenting myself.
 
how did you get that menu with the boxes and plugs?
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In that little window at the bottom left, click on the dropdown (in my screenshot its an orb, it'll probably be a clock for you) and change it to shader editor. Then you can use the add tab or shift+A to add nodes, then drag the cables around
 
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