Answered: Metalness vs Specular

gc3d

Hey guys hope this is the right place to ask this but I'm looking to start using Quixel for all my personal projects that will be showcased in ue4 and I'd also like to use sketchfab.

My question is, What is the benefits of using a metalness workflow over spec and vice versa? Is there a better work flow to use to display my work in ue4 and on sketchfab? I have dont some research and think I understand the differences between each one but I'm just not sure which workflow to adapt, so if anyone can help or point me in the right direction that would be fab!

slosh

If you're not sure, why not try both?  I prefer specular personally because I like the flexibility of changing the spec color to be different from the albedo.  I believe metalness is more real world accurate.  Kinda comes down to preference.  It can also depend on what you're using the assets for.  If it's personal art, then it probably doesn't matter but something I realized at work was that using metalness makes it easier to transition the textures into our proprietary engine.

Synaesthesia

I pretty much work exclusively in metalness, only because all of my work is placed in UE4. If you're planning to work with Unreal, there's not really a whole lot of reasons to use a different workflow. If you need specular and gloss maps, you can always add them using DDO's menu later on.