Blinn, Oren-Nayar-Blinn, and Phong Highlights

The Blinn, Oren-Nayar-Blinn, and Phong shaders all have specular highlights and share the same highlight controls. Blinn and Oren-Nayar-Blinn highlights are somewhat softer and rounder than Phong highlights.

Note: For the Raytrace material, the Specular Color component appears in the Specular Highlight group. Also, highlight controls that don’t pertain to the current shader are labeled “N/A.”

Procedures

To increase or decrease the strength of a highlight:

To increase or decrease the size of a highlight:

Interface

Specular Level

Affects the intensity of the specular highlight. As you increase the value, the highlight grows brighter. Default=0 for a Standard material, 50 for a Raytrace material.

Click the map button to assign a Specular Level map. This button is a shortcut: You can also assign a Specular Level map on the Maps rollout.

Glossiness

Affects the size of the specular highlight. As you increase the value, the highlight gets smaller and the material appears shinier. Default=10 for a Standard material, 40 for a Raytrace material.

Click the map button to assign a Glossiness map. This button is a shortcut: You can also assign a Glossiness map on the Maps rollout.

Soften

Softens the effect of specular highlights, especially those formed by glancing light. When Specular Level is high and Glossiness is low, you can get harsh backlights on surfaces. Increase the value of Soften to mitigate this effect. At 0, there is no softening. At 1.0, the maximum amount of softening is applied. Default=0.1.

Note: The Soften control was a checkbox in releases prior to 3ds Max2. When you load a material created in an earlier version of 3ds Max, if Soften was originally off, the new Soften value is 0.0. If Soften was originally on, the new Soften value is 0.6.
Highlight graph

This curve shows the effect of adjusting the values of Specular Level and Glossiness. As you decrease Glossiness, the curve grows wider; as you increase Specular Level, the curve grows taller.