making a specularity map

# 1 22-11-2007 , 05:14 PM

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In the process of making one of these for a character and I've got a couple of questions.

1) Should the image be completely grey scale or contain some colour? Most tutorials suggest gray scale though some say that colour can be included.

2) As a base colour, would you recommend very dark grey (assuming that those most areas will have very little specularity)?

3) In the few practice runs I've had, they don't look quite right - something about the colour. Does the specular colour come predominately from the colour of the map, or the light hitting it?

Thanks again,

gubar

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# 2 22-11-2007 , 06:27 PM

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the color comes from the specular color parameter (who would have thought user added image

).

however. u should know what kind of material it is. Is it rough/roughen up. or is it smoot = specular properties.

use a b/w pic with black being 0 = no specularity and 1 fully specular. everything in between acts as an muiltiplier..

but since Im not really texturing yet, others might provide a better answer...

greets

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# 3 23-11-2007 , 12:03 PM

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what I can tell you basically is that you might keep your specular map pretty dark. but the best way would be just test it out. take some days and explore every channel with different maps maybe, different lightsetup, different materials. I know this might not be the answer you expected. but to get the most out of it there is only one way.

test
test+
test++

everything starts and ends in the right place at the right time.

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# 4 23-11-2007 , 12:25 PM

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Thanks fallot,

that's what I'm doing, just like to post here for pointers or any bits of general advice.

I'll post some picks up on my wip thread once I've got some decent results.

cheers,

gubar

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# 5 23-11-2007 , 12:39 PM

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a general advice would be to take in account which amount of light does which part of your surface reflect? I personally am very lazy and often just convert diffuse texture to grayscale and then apply a new curves layer onto it for tweaking the b/w contrast. I tend to keep it very dark, but that´s for realtime apps basically. I know it isn´t the correct way but it gives you quick results from where you can start. if I were into texturing (what I am NOT! XD) I´d observe the real object and paint a spec map by hand... maybe - or just convert diffuse to grey user added image

good luck!

everything starts and ends in the right place at the right time.

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# 6 23-11-2007 , 01:02 PM

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Cheers fallot,

I'm using the fast sss skin shader so have created a colour map and used this on two of it's diffuse channels, so I've never made a "proper" diffuse map.

I think I should take a look at them first, possibly see if there's a way to modify an existing colour map to create one, then from that create a specular.

thanks,

gubar

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# 7 23-11-2007 , 02:23 PM

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I reccomend using the mix 8 shader or the mix 21 shader with the fast SSS skin shader. You can layer spec maps or anything you want to get the skin looking very realistic. BTW, don't forget to connect a light map to your SSS if you haven't done it yet. If it's not connected you wont get the SSS effect.

I have attached an example of what a good spec and diffuse map should look like

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making a specularity map

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