3ds max, specular and opacity

Rick Stirling

Ok, I've got a model with diffuse, normal, specular and opacity maps. All these materials work, but when I render, the bits that are transparent due to the opacity map still catches light from the specular - so it looks like I have some "ghost" parts on the mesh.

Any ideas?

killingpeople

copy/instance your opacity map and use it as specular level map.

Rick Stirling

up, but then the specular wont work?

MoP

Use a Mask material in the Specular slot, with your Opacity map in the Mask slot, your Spec map in slot 1, and pure black colour in slot 2.

Rick Stirling

Ta!

I'm sure the game engine won't fuck it up like max, but I wanna do nice renders.

MoP

Quick thought - why not just overlay the opacity map texture (set to Multiply mode) on to the spec map in Photoshop, and just use that as a spec map? It's essentially doing the same thing as a Mask material, but without all the material faff.

FatAssasin

What killingpeople said is the most common, fastest way of handling it. That way, the transparent parts of the material, caused by the black areas in the map, are also not receiving any specular light because of the same black areas in the copied map. I don't know why you're asking if it will work. Give it a shot.

Rick Stirling

I have a black and white specular, controling skin tones, fabric reflections etc. My opacity map is on/off.

If I put my opactiry map as my specular, I would lose all the effects I was achieving with the specular map. The reason I'm using the opacity is that sometime I switch off parts of the model - so I can remove a leg or arm by applying the opacity.

TechSmith

Mops first suggestion of a mask has worked for me in the past. That was the process I used on my avatar, which is BoBos 13 model with a raytraced metal material.