[mverta]

Regarding Plastics: I understand that to represent real-world light energy, the sum total of values for Color and Specularity(Reflection) together, should not exceed 765 (255 per channel?).

So if your white, shiny object's color is 200,200,200 then its specularity should be 55,55,55.

But what if you have a shiny Red object? Pure red, I mean: 255,0,0. Does that mean that your white specular value would be 85,85,85? Or is it truly per channel so your specular values would be 0,255,255? That doesn't seem right, because then it'd be a colored specular.

_Mike

[Mihai]

I think we will soon (hopefully) depart from this RGB space and instead in the upcoming material editor work with real reflectance values/spectral data. Because as you say in these situations, what values are correct?

Logically the maximum in this case red, both for diffuse and specular reflection should not exceed 255, but it makes little sense to talk about the "red channel" when Maxwell is dealing in light energy internally. What is "255 red"? Maximum "red" in real spectrum?

[tom]

you're right mverta,
in the manual i described it with a simpe average formula.
however it's all right when any channel doesn't exceed 255.
you can set diffuse 255,0,0 and spec 0,255,255, but as you said it will produce unwanted color.
as mihai said, we'll control light energy better without using this RGB values.

[Hervé]

Spectral

I love that word... I bought Maxwell partly because that word... said again...

Spectral

that sounds so cool...

[mverta]

we'll control light energy better without using this RGB values.

Tom, is this officially planned for the release? Because I was thinking... what if you had a color map with lots of colored areas, black areas, etc. and you were trying to plan your specular map so none of the areas exceeded 100. I have no idea how you'd even DO that.

_Mike