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FSX Specular Maps?

lionheart

lionheart

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Hey all,

Does anyone map Speculars? If so, how would one use these? I mean, shine??? Really? But is it worth it? Is it a phenominal effect? Is there photos of this in action that shows how cool it can be?

I was happy just now to find I can deactivate the evil Shine by ticking 'No Base Material Specular Map' option (JOY bigtime) but now I wonder.. how does one use it anyways....



Bill
 
Just walk around the house and look at some objects. Specular shine is very common, and most object have it to some degree. Some objects are quite surprising. For example, a matte black grill on my bench which has a huge amount of specular shine, but very diffused highlights.

Specular shine is the easiest way to give objects a depth in FSX.

A lot of the default objects in FSX use specular maps, but I don't use them a lot, although I do leave a little specular colour on everything, otherwise the flatness can spoil the realism.
 
Here in the CFS3 backwoods we do use specular textures: the models are just 'dead' looking without them.
 
lionheart said:
Hey all,

Does anyone map Speculars? If so, how would one use these? I mean, shine??? Really? But is it worth it? Is it a phenominal effect? Is there photos of this in action that shows how cool it can be?
Click to expand...
Ah, someone who hasn't checked in the FSX SDK. Do understand that "shine" is not the same thing as "specular reflections" at all!

Bill, in the FSX SDK in the Environment Kit/Modeling SDK/FSX Material section there is an animated graphic showing nearly every possible combination of diffuse, specular, fresnel, bloom, frame buffer blending, shadows and force texture address clamp functions of the FSX Material settings...

...not only are they explained, you can SEE on the ubiqutous "teapot" the affect each of these settings produces.

Generally speaking, I set the "specular color" for any given area of a diffuse template to something just a bit lighter than the diffuse color's RGB value, for example if the area being considered is a dark blue, then I'll use a lighter shade of blue on the specular map. I also tend to add just a bare touch of "sunlight yellow" to another layer and blend it in Photoshop to give the illusion of being affected by sunlight.

The Alpha channel of the Specular Color bitmap is used to "focus" the specular reflection's size from extremely diffuse (spread out widely) to very tight (very sharply defined/focused).
 
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I consider the specular map as a way to control the shine or.. reflection? (whatever it be), which zone and his...brightness ?,
for my buildings right now they are shinny or not shinny, controlling his specular color.just that.
And Lionheart not fight the teapot.. be the teapot.
 
Tejal Bernardo said:
And Lionheart not fight the teapot.. be the teapot.
Click to expand...


LOLOLOL..... Roger that. Reminds me of Gerard; 'You must think like a Poly'..... Jedi Model techniques...


Yes, I have seen the SDK, I have seen the 'teapots.' I do not connect teapots well with planes, but I'll look at how they work with Specular.

Im glad that I found a way to lock them out though. That was nice. Odd that now that I do not need them that the curiosity builds up in me on how and why they work.



Bill
 
I guess as aircraft modeller all those bits must be observed, for buildings I have been observing we should control those specular better of course, Fsx apply by default shinness that is not good in many cases. and sorry for the joke :D
 
I did a small experiment: http://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/showthread.php?t=256649&highlight=specular
It might help you with more understanding. SDK is somewhat not easy to understand. Who makes teapot in FSX?
Specular is the LIGHT that shine from the surface of object.
Reflection is the ENVIRONMENT that reflect on the surface. Like glass, chrome, mirror.

Specular texture controls the LIGHT reflect from the object. You can have a red car with green LIGHT shining. Beetle is a very good example, its color is green but the light shining can be red color.

Specular alpha controls the REFECTION of the environment. The white alpha causes full reflection. You have to set "Blend environment by specular map alpha","Use global environment map as reflection" and "Reflection Scale to 50%-100%.
 
jtanabodee said:
Specular alpha controls the REFECTION of the environment. The white alpha causes full reflection. You have to set "Blend environment by specular map alpha","Use global environment map as reflection" and "Reflection Scale to 50%-100%.
Click to expand...

While it can do the above, by default the spec Alpha controls the focus of the spec reflection.

It is even possible to hijack the spec Alpha to control transparency of the diffuse color. It all comes down to how you as the modeler choose to set the various options... :cool:
 
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