color spec maps?....

fritz

i've noticed that a lot of people...like the dominance war winner has a spec map that is colored. the old way was always black and white. can someone(MOP/DAZ)elaborate on the colored maps? thanks guys!

snoops

Hello everyone I am brand spanking new to this site, and I have a basic question on top of what fritz is asking. Does anyone know how to use both color spec maps and normal maps in max. I have been trying to find a stock max shader that does both. Thanks everyone!

Daz

Check out the stickied thread two above this one. It's really nothing more than the fact that specular colour isn't simply white. Check out piors tut in particular, linked in that thread.

EarthQuake

Frits: Spec color is pretty simple actually, it basicly just sets the color that the highlight will be when light hits it. So everything dosent just highlight to white. The best way to see this is to just experiment with it in the 3d app of your choice and see the difference.

Snoops: Metalbump9 in max only has a slot for spec value, and a chooseable color picker thing, you cant do spec color with it as far as i know. One of the shaders here might be able to do it but i havent tested them http://www.monitorstudios.com/bcloward/resources_shaders.html

Sage

I might be wrong but to use specular colored maps in max you put the colored version in the spec color material slot and the black and white one in the spec level slot. What games like Doom 3 did was take a shortcut and put both in the same slot. I might be wrong on this so anyone fell free to educate me too.

Alex

EarthQuake

Thats right but it dosent show up in viewport, only render. And yes d3 uses a combo value/color map

Ruz

It does show up in the viewport if you use the normal bump shader and turn on dx manager thn click the pink material icon( blue normallly)
Has to be in either camera or perspective view though.

rooster

sage, I think you can just stick the coloured one into the spec level and it ignores the colour info and uses the brightness

snoops

Hey guys thanks for the great input, Ruz is correct I am trying to get both normal map and color spec maps to display in viewport. RUZ I tried what you said but it still did not display in either the camera or perspective viewport. Does anyone know what I am doing wrong.
Thanks!