Applying a specular texture into Mental Ray in Max

G-Saviour18

Hi, I'm new to using Mental Ray inside 3DS Max, and I've created a specular map for my current character, I'm not sure what the equivalent of specular is though inside of Mental Rays Arc and Design material, is it Reflection?

Any one out there able to tell me where I place the specular?

Thanks

maze

hello what you need in arch and design is a glossiness map, and optionally a color reflections map (spec) but glossiness is the one you'll use to control the levels/roughtness of reflections.

I'll quote Neil Blevins on this:

"All glossiness is how rough the surface is, and hence how blurry your specular/reflection gets at that point. In the case of the 3dsmax standard material, a higher value gives you a smaller highlight, or a more perfect reflection, or a smoother surface. A lower value gives you a larger highlight, or a less perfect reflection, or a more rough surface. So personally I'd just think of it in terms of roughness (in fact, many other renderers call this parameter roughness instead of glossiness), how rough is the material at any given point, apply the appropriate color value, and you'll get the results you want."

Now, there is a metal material option, but I recommend you also build your own color reflections map, as when you use this option, what it does, is that it takes your color map (difuse) to color the reflections but the overall material tends to look darker imo.

Arch and design is an awesome shader I'll use it as my workhorse shader at work, hope to see what you can come up soon!

Also, while not straightly directed to your question, some things you might want to consider is using Mr. Photographic exposure, gamma afecting your materials at 2.2 (linear workflow), and environment switcher using hdri. Hope this helps!

THE 5

maze:
The gloss map controlls the gloss as you say, not realy the specularity.
I think the specular be the "reflection colour" instead.
The maps brightnes controlls the strenth of the reflection (specular) and the colour controlls the colouring of the reflected light, just like any specular map is supposed to work.

What the metal option does, is taking the reflection colour from the diffuse maps colour, but thats just what you said I guess ;p

maze

Hi THE 5, yeah thats right, specular is the reflection colour on AD, best source I found is autodesk documentation itself! also mentalboutmax training is a good source.