How it work?:Specular map

[tor3203]

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=409459627
I don't know if anyone post this, but I try this on my own today, so I think I wanna share this info to everyone.
I just made an experiment with specular map and found out this:
(Grayscale. 100% white areas are rendered as windows) written in the wiki
but it fail to written about how gray specular map actually render or look like, so I conduct the experiment using a gradient.
a gradient between white to black.
what I found out is that the reflection get blurly the more black the map is.
as you can see the middle row. I have a gradient from white to black from right to left

A RENDER

A SPECULAR MAP USE

it also should be note that between 0-100% white. the reflection got divide to 8 square.
and the 4th square from the left is the first one that actually have a reflection visible.
so I think I can conclude that between 0-37.5% white, you will get no reflection.
start from 37.6-100% white you will get a blurly to sharp reflection at every 12.5% value increase.

What do you think?

 

[Daimond]

That's a long way of saying it
Easy way to remember it is that in this game it only pertains to glossy/reflections of windows. The more pure white an area is the more clear Window reflection it gets.
Anything between Black and White is basically the transparency %.

 

[tor3203]

That's a long way of saying it
Easy way to remember it is that in this game it only pertains to glossy/reflections of windows. The more pure white an area is the more clear Window reflection it gets.
Anything between Black and White is basically the transparency %.

I totally disagree with you on the transparency %.
transparency is not the same as how blurly the reflection is.
the alpha map is actually the one control how pixel get transparency. which 0 or 100% even when you have a gradient alpha

 

[Zed68]

I also made some experiments and I noticed something annoying

When you go lower than 100% you get some weird artifacts on the borders of the reflective zones (left to right on my pic is 100 90 80% etc...) It happens ingame at certain distances.

 

[OlaHaldor]

I got some weird artifacts on the building I made on the stream as well. Totally because of the specular map.

The specular map needs to be either black or white. Anything between will produce a reflection, but a dirty/messed up one. I got a lot of weird shapes and speckles on my building.

 

[Zed68]

I got some weird artifacts on the building I made on the stream as well. Totally because of the specular map.

The specular map needs to be either black or white. Anything between will produce a reflection, but a dirty/messed up one. I got a lot of weird shapes and speckles on my building.

You still can use a few percent for roofs, the artifacts are not too bad there and it makes a nice addition to the buildings when you looks the city from over. The ingame buildings are made that way.

 

[tor3203]

I also made some experiments and I noticed something annoying

When you go lower than 100% you get some weird artifacts on the borders of the reflective zones (left to right on my pic is 100 90 80% etc...) It happens ingame at certain distances.

can I see your diffuse and spcecular map on this one?

 

[Zed68]

can I see your diffuse and spcecular map on this one?

Yeah I made this test to see how colored glass could look... gradient on specular from black to red.

 

[tor3203]

Yeah I made this test to see how colored glass could look... gradient on specular from black to red.

in wiki

"_s" suffix stands for the specular texture (Mask) - 1 color channel mask to specifying per pixel specularity.

my guess is instead of 1 channel, black to red is definitely 3 channel image. That could be a source of your artifacts?

 

[Zed68]

in wiki

my guess is instead of 1 channel, black to red is definitely 3 channel image. That could be a source of your artifacts?

No sorry I just typed specular instead of diffuse... The gradient is on the diffuse map. :laugh:

I had those artefacts not only in that test but on a small house I'm building and were I tried to lower the reflection to have some texture with curtains showing.