Finally, the specular map! The specular map’s basic role is to dictate how much light is reflected off a surface. Materials like wood, brick or concrete will have lower specular values, while glass, metals and other metals have higher values. The same as with the normal map, the specular map requires careful examination of the surfaces involved to guarantee proper results. Some 3D engines might use a greyscale specular map, others a coloured one.
In the following images, the bright areas represent the windows with some dark areas for the parts that are dirty. The metal surfaces have brighter values with dark areas for rust and brighter areas for shiny details. The darkest values are for the bricks, concrete and wood. Of course, if the wood is painted, its specular value will be higher – same goes for wet or polished bricks. Another rule would be that older surfaces tend to reflect less light than new surfaces as they are affected by dirt, dust and/or rust, all of which have very low specular values.
In general, the specular map will have more contrast than the diffuse colour it has been generated from.
Here is how the specular maps look in this case (Fig.26 – 27).
Fig.26
Fig.27
Here is a compilation of screenshots from Maya, using the High Quality Renderer (Fig.28). This is the closest you can get to the in-game image while still using Maya. Similar details can be obtained when using other software packages, too.
Fig.28
Before wrapping things up, here is a list of all the 3DTotal Textures used in this tutorial:
As a conclusion, I leave you with a render of the final asset (Fig.29). I hope you have enjoyed this tutorial and hopefully this will help you better understand some of the challenges of texturing for next-gen games.
This image was created using
a few of the hundreds of textures from the
Total Texture CDs - very comprehensive texture
collections priced with the hobbyist in mind.
To see more examples, download free
samples and read full details follow
this link
