Advanced Member simmsimaging Posted March 10, 2011 Advanced Member Report Share Posted March 10, 2011 I am pretty sure this came up before but couldn't find an answer: Why can we only paint white into a spec map? It's not a very useful channel if we can't texture it with shades of grey like the colour channel. Generally I just have to create a new colour layer and paint a spec map as a separate thing, but it would be nice to be able to set the spec colour separate from the brush colour and hit that at the same time. Even just to be able to go back in and paint in some grey/black to tone down specularity would be useful. Am I missing something? b Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Psmith Posted March 10, 2011 Report Share Posted March 10, 2011 I don't know if you are painting your spec maps "live" (in the Paint Room), or elsewhere, but the level of specularity can be "toned down" by lowering the "Specularity" slider, when painting "live" - and it seems pretty effective, to me. It's "What you see is what you get", for me. If you try it out, and look at the exported "Specular map" - it consists of all kinds of levels of grey - from white all the way to black - so I'm not sure what you are referring to. If all you want to paint is specular highlights, turn off the "Depth and Color" icons (an "X" will appear through them). Greg Smith Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advanced Member simmsimaging Posted March 10, 2011 Author Advanced Member Report Share Posted March 10, 2011 I don't know if you are painting your spec maps "live" (in the Paint Room), or elsewhere, but the level of specularity can be "toned down" by lowering the "Specularity" slider, when painting "live" - and it seems pretty effective, to me. It's "What you see is what you get", for me. If you try it out, and look at the exported "Specular map" - it consists of all kinds of levels of grey - from white all the way to black - so I'm not sure what you are referring to. If all you want to paint is specular highlights, turn off the "Depth and Color" icons (an "X" will appear through them). Greg Smith Yep, I'm trying to paint live in the Paint Room, but the Spec can only seem to be toned down from white to nothing, but I cannot go back in and paint black etc. It's either white or nothing, unless I am using a Material that has an image map in the Spec slot, in which case it will paint that texture in. I am definitely only painting Spec to test it (depth and color are off) and I am looking at the spec channel only. Is there a way to go in and paint black (or any colour for that matter) back into the spec channel ? Nothing works (i.e changing the paint colour to black only affects the colour channel, spec is still white). This all applies to depth too btw! b Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advanced Member simmsimaging Posted March 10, 2011 Author Advanced Member Report Share Posted March 10, 2011 Sorry - meant to also say: thanks for helping with this! b Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Psmith Posted March 10, 2011 Report Share Posted March 10, 2011 In my own tests, if "Depth & Color" are checked "off", and I start painting with 100% specularity - I am able to go back and paint any other level over the top of this - all the way down to 0% (totally matte). Also, the "Eraser" tool erases all specularity (same as painting with 0%). This would be the equivalent to painting "black" on the specular map, directly. The color swatch doesn't seem to have anything to do with the level of specular highlight being applied - everything is determined by the "Specularity" slider. Try this experiment: Open a model for per-pixel painting, (it will receive AUTO UV mapping), raise the "Specularity" slider to 100% and, using the regular brush, paint on your object. Lower the "Specularity" value down to 25%, and paint right over what you just painted (you should see a greatly reduced highlight) - and then try lowering the value to 0%, and you should see a totally "matte" highlight replacing the previously painted ones. Do the same experiment as noted above, except use the "Eraser" in place of painting 0% Specularity. You should see the same "matte" result. To be totally convinced that all is working as designed, paint different areas of your object with widely contrasting areas of Specularity and, from the "Textures" menu, export just the "Specular" map. Open this up in any painting app and you will see all the levels of gray, white and black. Greg Smith Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advanced Member simmsimaging Posted March 10, 2011 Author Advanced Member Report Share Posted March 10, 2011 In my own tests, if "Depth & Color" are checked "off", and I start painting with 100% specularity - I am able to go back and paint any other level over the top of this - all the way down to 0% (totally matte). Also, the "Eraser" tool erases all specularity (same as painting with 0%). This would be the equivalent to painting "black" on the specular map, directly. The color swatch doesn't seem to have anything to do with the level of specular highlight being applied - everything is determined by the "Specularity" slider. Try this experiment: Open a model for per-pixel painting, (it will receive AUTO UV mapping), raise the "Specularity" slider to 100% and, using the regular brush, paint on your object. Lower the "Specularity" value down to 25%, and paint right over what you just painted (you should see a greatly reduced highlight) - and then try lowering the value to 0%, and you should see a totally "matte" highlight replacing the previously painted ones. Do the same experiment as noted above, except use the "Eraser" in place of painting 0% Specularity. You should see the same "matte" result. To be totally convinced that all is working as designed, paint different areas of your object with widely contrasting areas of Specularity and, from the "Textures" menu, export just the "Specular" map. Open this up in any painting app and you will see all the levels of gray, white and black. Greg Smith Thanks Greg - getting warmer for sure The spec slider combined with eraser does provide the functionality I was missing - but there is still something cumbersome/funky about the workflow this way. Using a tablet, you can't paint "less spec" over "more spec" by adjusting pressure, so you have to either manually reset the Spec value or erase. It's a lot of manual toggling around and loss of pressure sensitivity etc so it's not a very smooth way to paint, compared to just toggling between white and black and simply painting. This is how I do it now: making a new layer in the Color Channel and painting a black and white map that I later use as as Spec. Is it possible to implement a simple system so that when painting in Spec only the brushes respect the paint swatch colour? Thanks again for the info though: it's a huge help just to be able to do it at all b Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Psmith Posted March 10, 2011 Report Share Posted March 10, 2011 Maybe some of the problem with producing Specular highlights with 3D-Coat has to do with the way we "used to do things". Instead of thinking about specularity in terms of shades of grey that need to translated into "shiny-ness" or highlights, (the old way of thinking) - just think in terms of adding more or less "shine". For applying Specularity the 3D-Coat way, I just use a mouse and the "Specularity" slider. Gets the job done fast and you can just switch to a "Brush Alpha" to get a sharper edge or a more feathered one. It's all quite simple - and I think it should be - for something so basic. Greg Smith Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advanced Member simmsimaging Posted March 10, 2011 Author Advanced Member Report Share Posted March 10, 2011 Maybe some of the problem with producing Specular highlights with 3D-Coat has to do with the way we "used to do things". Instead of thinking about specularity in terms of shades of grey that need to translated into "shiny-ness" or highlights, (the old way of thinking) - just think in terms of adding more or less "shine". For applying Specularity the 3D-Coat way, I just use a mouse and the "Specularity" slider. Gets the job done fast and you can just switch to a "Brush Alpha" to get a sharper edge or a more feathered one. It's all quite simple - and I think it should be - for something so basic. Greg Smith Have to disagree with you on this one It's not about old or new ways, just ways that make sense. You can think of spec as more or less shine, but no matter how you think of it, in the end you have to create that with greyscale values, so being able to *add* blacks is a necessary component. Only being able to "remove white" to add black (or add less shine as you put it) is just a clunky way of doing it by comparison and involves flipping brushes and tools and makes it harder to do it with good creative flow and it is harder to get the nuanced tones that make for more subtle mapping. It's no different than painting layer masks or alpha channels in Photoshop, and I toggle between painting black or white constantly in that process. Anyway, to be able to freely paint and flow through the creative process you need a smooth interface, and this one just lacks IMO. Andrew: any chance of adding this functionality or is the discussion just moot anyway ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Javis Posted March 11, 2011 Report Share Posted March 11, 2011 I agree. It would be much easier and quicker to have the ability to paint black, instead of switching tools, erasing, switching tools, painting white... Rinse and repeat. It might not sound like too much an issue, but if you're on a job with a tight time allowance, well... Each minute counts. Another thing is that we still cannot paint colored spec maps, but that's another topic. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advanced Member simmsimaging Posted March 11, 2011 Author Advanced Member Report Share Posted March 11, 2011 I agree. It would be much easier and quicker to have the ability to paint black, instead of switching tools, erasing, switching tools, painting white... Rinse and repeat. It might not sound like too much an issue, but if you're on a job with a tight time allowance, well... Each minute counts. Another thing is that we still cannot paint colored spec maps, but that's another topic. I would happily make it part of this topic Something to consider about this: it is not *just* about how long it takes, it's more about how it affects the flow of work. Anyone who deals with creative processes will know what I mean: you get into a groove and you do things you just can't or don't do when it's broken out into separate chunks. For me it is very much a question of driving the process into the background so I'm not even aware of it. Painting colour in 3DC is great this way, but depth and spec are pretty simplistic and just can't keep up with that flow. I know this particular aspect of 3DC is fairly small to some people, but it's an important part of the texturing workflow, and if you are going to put the tools in there you might as well go all the way Just my POV, but I would love to hear Andrew chime in on it. Thanks /b Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Applink Developer haikalle Posted March 11, 2011 Applink Developer Report Share Posted March 11, 2011 simmsimaging. Maybe you already know this, but in layer menu you can select "Color to specular" that helps a lot. I would like to have similar randomness option from color painting into specular paint. We need some randomness into specular. Surface has very rare constant specular Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advanced Member simmsimaging Posted March 11, 2011 Author Advanced Member Report Share Posted March 11, 2011 simmsimaging. Maybe you already know this, but in layer menu you can select "Color to specular" that helps a lot. Thanks - that provides a different functionality again - basically the same workaround I already use, which is to paint a colour map to be later used as spec. Thanks for the tip, I didn't know about that function, but it doesn't fill the gap for me still /b Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Applink Developer haikalle Posted March 11, 2011 Applink Developer Report Share Posted March 11, 2011 If I understood you right, the missing feature you need is to darken or lighten the specular color already there? You could report this issue into mantis. I would almost consider this as a bug. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advanced Member simmsimaging Posted March 11, 2011 Author Advanced Member Report Share Posted March 11, 2011 Sorry, if I understood right the missing feature you need is to darken or lighten the specular color already there? Yes, basically. I would like to be able to paint with black as well as white (or any colour for that matter) to create variation in the spec map. Right now it will only paint with white, or erase. You can lower the specularity slider and paint over it with darker grey, but doing it that way sets a maximum value that is not pressure sensitive so you can't create very nice subtle gradients very easily. To be able to do the same in th depth channel would also be a great benefit, for all the same reasons. /b Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member ArBuZ Posted December 25, 2011 Member Report Share Posted December 25, 2011 Is there any changes for specular maps painting? Ive encountered with the same problem right now. As I understand right now there is no way to paint spec map with black and white color. You have to go to erase tool, set erase transparency then erase it, then switsh back to brush. Is this ok? How do you guys paint specular maps? Also Ive noticed that top layer specularity doesn't override specularity of all underlying layers. So if I want to change specularity of surface and have 10 layers for example, I have to find all layers that have specularity, erase it, and paint new specular on top layer. Right now it's absolutely unusable for me Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carlosan Posted January 31, 2014 Report Share Posted January 31, 2014 Updated to 4.0.14B - Specularity blending modes introduced - pose falloff applicable for lasso/rect selection inPose as well. - different proxy mode problems solved - camera shortcuts problems solved - several mantis problems solved Mac/Linux builds coming soon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member ab3d Posted January 31, 2014 Member Report Share Posted January 31, 2014 Boy i wish i had this feature 2 months ago when i was hand painting 8 x 4k spec maps. Better that than never though right. How much will the 4.1 upgrade cost for 4.0 users? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Contributor ajz3d Posted January 31, 2014 Contributor Report Share Posted January 31, 2014 Finally. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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