Metal Highlights

Metal-shaded materials generate their own specular color. Also, the highlight curve for the Metal shader differs in shape from the curve for Blinn Oren-Nayar-Blinn, and 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 size and intensity of a highlight:

To increase or decrease the strength of a highlight:

Interface

Specular Level

Affects the intensity of the specular highlight. As you increase the value, the highlight grows brighter and the diffuse color grows dimmer. Default=10 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 curve grows narrower and the highlight gets smaller. 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.

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.