How to make a shiny effect

Super Mario 3D Land also seems to have this effect.

I think you are talking about specular lighting.

There we go specular lighting! I couldn't remember the word so I called it a shiny glossy effect. So know all I need to do is figure out how to achive this effect. So those this mean games like super mario 3d land, mario kart 7, and other 3d mario games use specular lighting?

The specular term is just a single part of your lighting, usually combined with some ambient and diffuse lighting. It represents the reflected light and is usually computed based on the surface normal, light position and the view position - as opposed to the diffuse term that doesn't depend on the view position but only the normal and light position, and the ambient term that's just a constant everywhere.

The wikipedia article for Blinn-Phong shading (usually just "Phong shading") is probably a good place to start.

ok then so its specular lighting, ambient and diffuse lighting combined then?

Yes, added together.

Specular lighting+ambient lighting+diffuse lighting= shiny/glossy effect. Or is specular lighting what you get when you add both ambient and diffuse lighting togethor?

oh yeah what level of specular lighting, ambient lighting, and diffue lighting is in the mario kart 7 pictures that I posted?

Specular lighting+ambient lighting+diffuse lighting= shiny/glossy effect. Or is specular lighting what you get when you add both ambient and diffuse lighting togethor?

oh yeah what level of specular lighting, ambient lighting, and diffue lighting is in the mario kart 7 pictures that I posted?

Not quite, you are over-simplifying this. The "shiny effect" you are looking for is the result of a few reflectivity constants that are properties of something in graphics called a material, or surface material. Every surface is going to have in general three reflectivity constants, ambient, diffuse, and specular (there can be other properties as well, I am speaking for a general case). Ambient, diffuse and specular reflection are all different ways that light interacts and affects a particular surface. As an example, chrome and wood both have unique surface materials that each interact with light differently -- thus a chrome and wood material both have different values for their reflectivity constants.

In particular, specular highlighting and specular reflectance are generally attributed to describing the "shininess of an object":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specular_highlight

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specular_reflection

There are many shading and reflection models that can be used to represent the effect you are looking for, here are some examples:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phong_reflection_model

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blinn%E2%80%93Phong_shading_model

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oren%E2%80%93Nayar_reflectance_model

After that you just need to play with your reflectivity constants to get the material "look" that you want! :)

Specular lighting+ambient lighting+diffuse lighting= shiny/glossy effect. Or is specular lighting what you get when you add both ambient and diffuse lighting togethor?

oh yeah what level of specular lighting, ambient lighting, and diffue lighting is in the mario kart 7 pictures that I posted?

To put it simply, specular lighting is the light that reflects directly at the viewer at a certain point, that is the full color of the light (usually white but specular highlights can be any other color), as opposed to diffuse lighting which is the reflected color of the object, which filters certain wavelengths of light. An explanation of how shiny materials work

In practice we don't accurately model molecular properties of materials for games, so it is simpler to tell the program what color an object is (in normal, flat white lighting). Then it becomes more involved when the "original" color is changed due to other lighting properties and lighting models like the ones mentioned above.

zerozero789 has you said before super mario 3d land also has the specular lighting, im not an expert at on this type of lighting effect so can anyone else confirm that super mario 3d land has this effect? Here are some images of suepr mario 3d land.

"Shininess" immediately conjures up specular lighting term to a dev but if you are not familiar with the terminology then it may well mean something completely different to you personally. Is it the entire aesthetic you are trying to describe or something specific?

I know that the shinny effect is specular lighting. I just couldn't remember the word "specular lighting". Anyways Im now wondering if mario kart 7 and super mario 3d land uses the specular lighting effect. Tge images of the games are posted to help anyone with the theory that I'm trying to solve.

Recent Mario Games make heavy use of Rim Lighting which also seems to be multiplied with a "rim reflectance texture". It looks like they might also make use of some environment maps to create this look.

I actually doubt, that they are using any traditional lighting methods at all.

Mario graphics are not meant to be realistic, but rather simple and colorful in order to emphasize - and help the player to distinguish - different objects in the game. Hence, they don't have to use traditional lighting very often.

Hey CryZe what resent mario games make use of heavy rim lighting?

ZeroZero, The Mario Galaxy series is where i first noticed heavy use of rim lighting.

Mario Galaxy was the first game to have rim lighting. But look at games like Super Mario 3d Land it doesn't seem to have any rim lighting.