[starbug]

I have completed the diffuse map for the tython battlecruiser I am working on but I am struggling with making a shine map, what is the best way to make a shinemap, or any tips and advice and are the just the same as spec maps?

[zookeeper]

Yes, in FS2O shinemaps and specmaps mean the same thing. I'd pretty much just make a monochrome image where black is matte and white is very shiny, and when you're done just make sure the channels are right (I don't recall how they're supposed to be set up).

I don't think you need much fancy texturing work on it, really. Just give different materials different intensity, and then take whatever dirt/wear layers you have on your diffuse map and use those to make blastmarks matte, and metal showing from underneath worn-out paint more shiny, etc.

[mjn.mixael]

Le Wut. Noooo. Lrn2Txtr, zookeeper.

Shinemaps in FSO. The RGB channels represent the shine levels. I have found zero reason to remake this map from scratch. Take your diffuse and make small edits. For example, I'll make windows full white instead of whatever diffuse color I gave them.. I may change the intensity of any grunge. I dampen the colors of the diffuse and I usually bulk increase the contrast of the whole map.

Then add an Alpha channel. This controls the environment mapping in FSO. That means that it tells FSO how much reflectivity the material should have. Generally I make windows/glass full white and everything else black. Sometimes, depending on the effect that I want, I'll add some of the regular diffuse back in. Best bet here is the play with it to see how it works. Just know that black = non reflective and white = full reflective. In most cases, the Alpha channel will be mostly black.

[Droid803]

Always add an alpha channel and make it mostly-black.
Last thing you want is mirror-ships.

[headdie]

Always add an alpha channel and make it mostly-black.
Last thing you want is mirror-ships.

Unless it is WoD1

[pecenipicek]

to all of you: 
http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Texturing
http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Texture_types#Specular_Maps

About speculars in particular there was a rather interesting one about how it actually all interacts together.

[edit]Found it: http://www.manufato.com/?p=902

This is, even with images missing, a very very very good overview of "how to specmap!"

[starbug]

Cool thanks guys

[Mad Bomber]

Personally, what I've been doing is taking the basic texture in GIMP, lowering the brightness (amount varies from -40 to -125 depending on the model), and upping the contrast by +30. This makes it shiny enough to be noticeably metallic, but not eye-blindingly glaring.

[Herra Tohtori]

Summary:

Specular map (RGB channels of the shinemap) does not need to be greyscale. You can make specular reflections have colour.

This is especially useful because not every shiny surface reflects all visible light wavelengths the same way. For example you can make gold coloured surface actually have gold coloured specular reflection, too. Or red glass christmas three decorations, or whatever. The type of the surface should be reflected in the amount of saturation you put on the shinemap. A completely greyed out shinemap will make the specular reflections white, and only control their intensity (brightness). Personally I find that completely grey shinemap tends to make the colours of the diffuse map slightly "washed-out" - for some materials this is appropriate, for others it's not.

Environmental mapping intensity is controlled by alpha channel of the shinemap. Black alpha (transparent) means the part does not reflect environment at all, white alpha means it has a mirror-like reflection of the environment (100% intensity).

Perfect mirror reflection is appropriate for something like chromed, polished metal parts (or actual mirrors).

Black alpha is appropriate for completely matte surfaces.

For reference - a simple panel of glass (with no anti-glare coatings or other such things) has a total reflection coefficient of about 7% at zero angle of incidence, but this might not result in sufficiently visible environmental reflections for your purposes - you'll have to experiment with something between black (no envmapping) and white (full envmapping) alpha channel intensity. I'm not at all sure if FSO shaders take the angle of the reflective material into account when it comes to intensity of reflections (either specular or environmental).


For future reference: There have been experiments in FSO with doing more physically oriented environmental reflections, allowing control of not only intensity, but sharpness of the reflections - basically, any object "reflects" the environment, but whereas a mirror-like surface reflects an image, most objects diffuse the light enough that you just see the general predominant colour reflected on the object - for example on a matte grey painted aircraft flying over desert, the top would have bluish hue while bottom might have more yellowish hue.

But I don't really know what is the status of getting this kind of technology fully armed and operational...

[Swifty]

What you're talking about is roughness/gloss maps which controls both the intensity of the highlight and the intensity of the environment map reflection. FSO doesn't have this capability. Yet. I'm reading literature about physically-based rendering lately and my interest about incorporating a better BRDF lighting equation with gloss map support intrigues me.

[Herra Tohtori]

"Intensity" is a bit of a poor word. Sharpness, or definition, maybe?

Basically gloss map would determine the degree of diffusion in refleced light from zero (mirror-like clear reflection and very sharp specular highlights) to perfectly diffused reflection (matte surface, doesn't reflect image but the reflected light is still the colour of the environment it came from - it's like applying a convolution to the envmap, I guess).

But yes, that's exactly what I referred to. And I could have sworn I've seen some tests - possibly by The E? - which displayed different levels of convolution of the environmental map...