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Interesting comment at https://github.com/TTimo/doom3.gpl/blob/aaa855815ab484d5bd095f347163194ac569abcc/neo/renderer/draw_arb2.cpp#L182 -- I wonder whether Doom 3 did (or was intended to do) anything with the alpha channel. |
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This request seems unnecessary. The engine requires RGB specular anyway, so using a known workflow similar to this one: https://3dtotal.com/tutorials/t/brief-consideration-about-materials-pedro-toledo-texturing-lighting you can make proper speculars for both dielectric and conductive materials, adjusting the "specular power" via the texture intensity. I've been using such approach for my environment and it works. We just don't have a proper tutorial for making good speculars like that, so this technique isn't known among authors. |
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You can adjust specular colour, yes. That's mentioned in the linked thread: 'The specular maps worked alright in Doom 3 because the environment called for lots of shiny metallic surfaces. But in a more real world setting there are more dielectric surfaces than not. And since you can't adjust glossiness to tone down bright highlights you darken your specular to compensate and sacrifice color saturation.' http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/19474-tutorial-better-textures-for-your-materials-wip-part-2a-is-up/&do=findComment&comment=422944 If you've found a means of working around whatever limitations you encountered when you wrote 'You can use speculars based on inverted diffuse maps to simulate dielectric surfaces, the only problem is that you don't have a separate parameter to adjust specular power' http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/19474-tutorial-better-textures-for-your-materials-wip-part-2a-is-up/&do=findComment&comment=422958 then good! Sometimes I'd like to adjust the gloss while leaving the spec. colour where it is: http://idtechforums.fuzzylogicinc.com/index.php?topic=122.msg885#msg885 |
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Btw., "the solution to the plastic problem" isn't gloss map, it's using a RGB specular map, either based on diffuse colors for metals, or inverted diffuse colors for dielectric. Then you need to decide which parts are more smooth/shiny that others, there are many ways to do that. And you don't need high color saturation for dielectric surfaces. Quite contrary, you need to tone it down, so the resulting specular is white – you can go overboard with saturation and make it colored with inverse diffuse approach, so you have to be careful here. As for putting the the glossmap in the specular texture alpha map – this is a pretty bad idea, since specular maps already use some kind of exponent, so they match the light textures in the map. Is it 100% / white in alpha? I don't think so, since the purpose of that feature is to have freedom in adjusting the specular hotspot below or beyond the default. So that would require reworking all the specular textures alpha channel to match the current default value. If anything, it would be much better to just expose a parameter in the blend specularmap stage. Also, think of real-world use cases of those specular power parameter examples presented in the thread: these are mostly applicable to stuff like car paint, plastic, or Christmas glass balls. Not too many of these surface types in TDM world. The workaround for not having a direct control over a how big the specular hotspot is, is rather simple – using different (smaller) falloff textures in your lights. But even that is rarely needed in practice. |
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Specular maps that have been compressed using the http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=DDS_creation#Guidelines_for_DDS_Textures guidelines don't have an alpha channel. It's possible of course that specular maps not compressed with the guidelines exist in the wild, and so requiring an explicit parameter in material shaders to turn gloss control on might be good. Designing lighting schemes around gloss, especially in a game in which lighting plays a central gameplay role, isn't a simple workaround as I understand the term. |
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Hmm, curious: textures/particles/ripple_1 (which uses the translucent/diffusemap _black combination) actually stipulates alpha 0 in the specular stage. |
- Anonymous
