I do agree with Tyr, that finding a good image is often the best way to go. However, his picture is all wrong. If you take a 2d photograph of a 3d item, especially with one in that much detail, it will never look right on your texture. Instead, I'd suggest finding a smooth surface (an anodized brass belt buckle likely has the look you are going for), and importing that image as a diffuse bitmap to your material. Then, take a photo like the one Tyr used and use it for a bump map (this takes alot of adjusting sometimes, and could be better looking in the end without it. Finally, adjust the secular and glossiness levels on the material editor until it looks right. I highly suggest adding a light with shadows into your project, because the default lighting is often deceptive, and things look better or worse when brought into lighting. Another thing, is don't always rely on the material viewer or the viewport, do a quick render after every adjustment, and see how it looks finished off. However, for metals, if you really don't want to go get an image for whatever reason, I've found that the below method can be used to create a polished metal look.
1) Open your materials editor
2) For the first material, use the metal shader style, and create a diffuse material with the base color you want (an orangish yellow is a good beginning for a final look of gold).
3) Adjust the secular and glossy levels to, say 25/10 respectively. This gives it a low burnish to it, but nothing great. Adjust to taste, just remember, you're going for a dull polish right now, not a finished look.
4) Make this material 2-sided. Place this material on the inside polygons of your armor, and on the ridges (leaving the outside untextured for now).
5) Back in your material editor, go to the next material. Create a raytrace template style, with 0 opacity and extremely high secular levels. This is your "polish".
6) Add a bump map of the the armor (if you don't have a photographic image to work with, then make a shadow map out of black and white in photoshop. Use greys to create gradual ridges instad of punched holes and sharp plateaus.
7) Apply the polish to the untextured exterior of your armor.
When you're finished, the outside surface should shine to a high polish, but the transparency combined with the dull-polished gold backing will give it a look of highly burnished metal. Also, this has the added benefit that the inside of the armor doesn't look as highly polished, which it shouldn't.
The cons to this system:
- Ray-traces are a heavy drag on resources, and could slow down your rendering. Ok, WILL slow down your rendering.
- Unless you have fumbled through it before, it's likely to take hours and several tries to get right.
In all, I'd reccommend the first method over the ray-traced method. Find yourself an image of flat, polished metal, add it as diffuse, add a bump map, you're good.
