Spec falloffs and reflection masks?

fattkid

hey folks,

I'm trying to learn how to create specular intensity, specular falloff, and reflection maps properly, and getting them working together. I understand specular maps, but I've never made specular falloff and reflection masks, and I'm not sure how to make the spec falloff and reflection mask, and how they will all work together. For my purpose, these three maps will all be in a R, G, and B channel of one texture. (No colored spec)

For my example, I'm creating a metal surface. A kind of weathered, fairly realistic, grungy piece of barbarian type armor.

I've attached a pic of the base metal diffuse texture, and the "shader ball" I made to test these things out on. (At the moment it only has diffuse and normal. And the flat grey sections are 50% grey, for reference.)

I'm kind of hoping for some visual examples of the spec falloff and reflection masks, with some explanations. Feel free to do a quick and dirty paintover on my image

So yeah, whatever links, turorials, and info you could so kindly provide would be much appreciated. In the meantime, I'll keep googling.....

fattkid

So, here's an attempt at creating these maps to create metal. I'm sure someone will say "if it looks good, it is good", and I agree, but I want to make sure I'm understanding the ideas/principles of the reflection mask, spec falloff, and spec intensity together.

just to clarify my understandings.....the spec intensity is basically the intensity/brightness of the specular effect, the specular falloff is its glossiness, with one end of the value scale representing a very reflective, shiny surface, and the other end of the value scale representing the opposite, diffused matte surface. The reflection map is basically stating where and how much will be reflected.

I think I basically understand them all together, though I'm sure you guys could fill me in a few helpful things. I guess I'm a bit more uncertain on how to use all three in conjuction to effectively create my intended surface.

So yeah, whatever thoughts or suggestions etc are very much appreciated.

Here's my attempt I just did - viewport screengrab with our in house shader (it's kind of a basic, not too fancy shader, so I really want to try to get the most out of it)

cman2k

"spec falloff" is kind of an ambiguous terminology. I can only assume you are referring to a specular exponent map ('gloss map')?

If so, check out this nifty example from Valve's wiki.

phong mask = specular map
phong exponent mask = gloss map

also pay attention to how specular and exponent work together. This is the key, really.