Specularity Maps

low odor

OK .... spec = shiny..I know with grayscale spec white = super shiny, black =dull

What do colored specularity maps do? And how do you determmine the color? Is it based off the diffuse? If anyone could nudge me in the right direction I would appreciate it..thanks

low odor

Hooray for archives

http://boards.polycount.net/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=81058&an=0&page=0#Post81058

low odor

hahaha Dont mind me....it was like the third sticky in this section

art student

normally the spec color is white by default in 3d programs. obviously in real life when light bounces off an object the spec is the color of the object it is bouncing off. that is exactly what spec color does. and IS based on the diffuse map. I was told by my instructor to create a spec color map all you have to do is turn up the saturation in photoshop on your diffuse map. it worked pretty good for me. hope that helped...

MoP

Well, that won't work for flesh specular. If you did what your instructor said to get a specular map for a human face, you'd end up with something that looked more like shiny metal than flesh.
The specular is blended with the diffuse, so for a less saturated or different colour highlight, you should use the inverse colour of your diffuse.
It's explained in much more detail and technical accuracy in the thread low odor linked just before, though. Well worth a read.

pior

I was told by my instructor to create a spec color map all you have to do is turn up the saturation in photoshop on your diffuse map. it worked pretty good for me. hope that helped...

Well your instructor is wrong :P

When painting a specmap you'll end up doing much more 'material thinking' work with it than with the diffuse. Like, specular painting is really the part when you think about the very specificities of the material you want to describe, how different surfaces contrast with each other, aso.

Ex : your character is a superhero wearing a latex suit colored in bright blue, and armor made out of black metal. The specular bit for the latex bit has to be quite dark, but the spec for the metal needs to be bright to convey a shiney metal look. Something you couldn't get all at once with just a curve or saturation tweak on the diffuse (and I'm not speaking about specific material shaders here).

Ryno

Yeah, you really need to re-work things for specular, and not just copy/paste/saturate/desaturate the diffuse for specular.

With regards to the color spec map, if you're wondering what it does, just look at a can of Coke, or some new shiny cars. They get that almost irradescent look to them as their specularity picks up some of the color of the object.

Taking this into account, watch out for overdoing color spec maps as everything can quickly end up looking like Coke cans. Just a hint of color here and there can go a long ways. It'll add just a little bit of interesting variation to the surface. Lots of color will give things a very stylized look many times.

Be conscious of what type of surface you are trying to convey when doing spec, spec falloff, and spec color. Specularity is how shiny it is. Falloff is how tight the shine is when looked at from an angle. Spec color is the color transmission that is added to the shine. Sometimes these aspects do not match with the actual diffuse color of the object.