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Material Editor - Specular Highlights

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120
Country
ca-ontario
Does anyone have an opinion of the best values to represent a believable shine on the fuselage?

What about dulling down tires, but giving them a slight reflection? Thanks.

Doug
 
Last edited:

Vitus

Resource contributor
Messages
1,480
Country
newzealand
Hey Doug,

there isn't ONE answer to the question. First off it depends on what look you like to achieve - is it a plastic-bomber, a painted alu fuselage or a shiny bare-metal skin?

There are a number of ways to achieve a good reflection/shine. Just to give you an example: you can apply a white-to-blue fresnel ramp and a black and white spec map oooor you make the fresnel black and white and the spec map blue. The shine will be (almost) the same..

Just try different things and see which combination works for you.

Cheers,
Vitus
 

n4gix

Resource contributor
Messages
11,674
Country
unitedstates
Normally you would want to use one of the "default" frenel ramps though. The entire purpose of the frenel ramp is to modulate the amount of specular reflection and the size of the specular highlights (i.e., "falloff") based on the angle of view...

It is the gradient nature of the default frenel ramps that achieve this result.

The RGB channels of the bitmap controls the color of the specular reflection.
The Alpha channel of the bitmap controls the size of the specular highlight:
white = diffuse spread
darker+ = tighter/smaller highlight
black = no highlight
 
Messages
120
Country
ca-ontario
Hey Doug,

there isn't ONE answer to the question. First off it depends on what look you like to achieve - is it a plastic-bomber, a painted alu fuselage or a shiny bare-metal skin?

Thanks Vitus, it is a painted fuselage. Also, when you adjust the settings, are you using 1 light or 2 lights in the Gmax viewport configuration?
 

n4gix

Resource contributor
Messages
11,674
Country
unitedstates
You cannot truly "see" the FSX Material effects in the GMax viewport. You'll just have to bite the bullet and export to the sim to determine the end results... :(
 
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