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Can I get specular/reflection modulated separately from base color?

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Jon Watte
Posts: 30
Filters: 18
Right now, the "base color" modulates both the diffuse/ambient term, and the specular/reflection term in the surface calculation.
Unfortunately, if I want to make a black, shiny surface, this doesn't work right. Typically, renderers will have a separate modulation mask for the diffuse/ambient term and for the specular/reflection term. This would allow me to make a surface that's black (or very dark) yet has bright highlights or shiny reflections.

Separately: Is there a way to introduce new environment maps?
Posted: April 25, 2015 2:01 pm   Details E-Mail
Skybase
2D/3D Generalist

Posts: 4025
Filters: 76
Quote
Right now, the "base color" modulates both the diffuse/ambient term, and the specular/reflection term in the surface calculation.


So I'm assuming your filter you've created has the base color connected to "surface color" and "reflectivity"?? Not sure what you mean. The height parameter does affect how the surface detail looks and will also affect how the specular/reflections will appear in the output.

I'll make you a sample filter to explain.

Quote
Separately: Is there a way to introduce new environment maps?


Go into tools > HDRI import

HDRI import tends to be slow so work with small HDR images.
Posted: April 26, 2015 7:26 pm   Details E-Mail
Sphinx.
Filter Optimizer

Posts: 1750
Filters: 39
Take a look at the lightning section in this filter. You can turn down brightness completely if you only want to work with manual lights. Manual lights can be configured like you want (if I understand your goal correctly).

Black Sphere.ffxml
Njyldgarkn init/prepare process x no. of render blocks x no. of passes
Posted: April 27, 2015 3:43 am   Details E-Mail
Jon Watte
Posts: 30
Filters: 18
Sorry, I didn't describe it quite right.
The term I'm interested in is the alpha term.
Right now, if I have a surface color that includes alpha, that alpha also fades out the reflection/specular terms.
If I'm building a "glass" filter, it would actually be more physically accurate to have separate control for reflection/specular alpha, versus underlying-surface alpha. Glass might be "perfectly transparent" yet have a very strong "reflective image" component.
Posted: April 27, 2015 12:56 pm   Details E-Mail
Sphinx.
Filter Optimizer

Posts: 1750
Filters: 39
Ah, I see. An option on the lightning tab called "Alpha knocks out lightning" would be useful!

There might be a workaround: if you use a temporary completely black surface color, then use
the grayscale version of the rendering as alpha.
Njyldgarkn init/prepare process x no. of render blocks x no. of passes
Posted: April 28, 2015 6:29 am   Details E-Mail

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