[pluMmet]

What makes it a bit more confusing is M~R's use of the term "reflection", which only refers to specular (i.e., reflection) color. IMO the term should be changed to specular color.

Well Adam what is glossy channel for? I must be confused

[Mihai]

pluMmet, you're thinking in "old" shader terms

in reality, there is no separate diffuse and reflection, it's ALL reflection, it's ALL reflected light. Maxwell still separates them into diffuse and specular reflection, but that's for the sake of optimisation.

Think about it, you see an object, because the light hits the object, some light is absorbed, the rest is reflected back to your eye.

It depends on the roughness of the objects surface how clean (specular) it reflects the environment it's in. If the object is very smooth, light will reflect in almost the same direction, if it's very rough it will reflect in all directions thus making a rough (or glossy) reflection, but it's still reflection.

To understand better, make two spheres, on one put a default diffuse mat, on the other put a plastic with default specular value, and roughness set all the way up to 1. The two spheres should look about the same.

[pluMmet]

Well thank you Mihai Iliuta- I do understand that all we see is light bouncing off of stuff. In my understanding the word reflective means more then one thing. to reflect and to bounce can mean the same thing. but relfect can also mean to carry a representation of an object thru the bouncing of light off of an object. once you can make out an object purley thru it's reflection its reflective properties become mirroring (a step beyond normal reflections.) I do not think that plastic should have mirroring as a default.

[rivoli]

I'm not mad or anything it's just not correct and I didn't think this would happen in the alpha but maybe I'll check.

believe me, plastic behaved in the same way with the alpha.
maybe what is making confusion here is the noun "plastic". a plastic shader in maxwell is a shader which has a diffuse component (unlike metal and dielectric) and a specular component (unlike diffuse). just to make it simple. it can be used to simulate nearly every kind of material but glass (plastic, wood, ceramic, paper, wax ... ), so is not restricted to "plastic" surfaces actually.
besides all those examples you shown are reflective plastics.

[pluMmet]

Thank you rivoli- I think I have the answer to what the problem is:

Reflecting a light source (specular) is not what I'm refering to.

What i am refering to is secondary bounces of light carring the seconday light colors onto a surface (a mirror effect) (reflective as it is commonly called.)

any way I originaly needed a wood surface with some areas of mirroring for the floor so I used M~R plastic. Bad for me plastic in M~R cannot stop itself from mirroring which I don't want.

[pluMmet]

To be more precise I wanted to create a floor that at one time had a sealing compound on it but thru time and traffic across the floor, some of the sealing compound has worn off and would not mirror.

But I can't stop the M~R material that I would need for this from mirroring where I don't want it to.

[Mihai]

once you can make out an object purley thru it's reflection its reflective properties become mirroring (a step beyond normal reflections.)

i don't think you understood me, what do you mean by "beyond normal reflections"? In real life there aren't normal and "special" reflections....it only depends on how smooth the surface is which reflects light.

You must stop thinking on old 3D terms with the phongs and the blinns....

look around and you will see that almost everything has a discernable reflection, what would be in Maxwell the equivalent of applying the plastic mat with various roughness settings.

AdamT, the reflection slot afaik only affects where and how strong the reflections will be, it does not affect reflection (specular) color. You do that with the specular color chip, or a texture.

I guess the reflection slot is there to simplify things when you have nice specular color strengtg overall but would just like some areas of the object to not be reflective, or less/more reflective.

So, with the specular color chip or texture slot you control both reflection strengh AND color, with reflection slot only strengh.

But I can't stop the M~R material that I would need for this from mirroring where I don't want it to.

several choices:

- open the specular color chip and set the value to 0 (this will make the whole surface diffuse only)

- use the specular texture slot with an rgb b/w image (this works with greylevels, whiter=more reflective, or it can also be color in which case it will take the luminosity as well as color to determine specular strength and coloration)

- use specular texture slot AND roughness setting OR a texture in the glossy slot which will override the roughness numeric settings (this will give you most control and most realistic look)

[pluMmet]

i don't think you understood me, what do you mean by "beyond normal reflections"?

It bothers me that this is seeming like an argument.

What I mean by 'beyond normal reflections' is we can't see unless light is reflecting off of stuff. This is what I'm calling 'normal reflections.'

but once again the problem I'm reffering too is that the M~R plastic seems to not be able to stop itself from mirroring. I am calling mirroring a reflection beyond normal. You can't make out objects by there reflection of off other objects on a regular bassis. this is a compounded reflection which I'm calling not the norm.

500 years ago a beyond there were only mirrors and water that would carry a mirrored reflection. Just because we have become used to man made stuff does not make it normal for stuff to mirror everything around them.

[Mihai]

It bothers me that this is seeming like an argument.

well you started it!!!

please read my above post, i added some stuff about how to get rid of the specular reflection.

[pluMmet]

Thank you all very much! You especially Mihai Iliuta. I get how M~R works better now

The specualr chip (i had no idea what you meant.) I was calling that a swatch. I now see that the default is a grey which is in the mirroring area of specularity.

Thanks again

[The Pixel Artist]

Hey pluMmet, in hopes to end your confusing debate going here, the specular color on the plastic material (next to the diffuse color) controls the amount of "reflection" (in simple terms). Setting the color to say 255 white would make your plastic be 100% reflective like a mirror and vice versa black would look just like a standard "diffuse" material. Additionally if you where to set the diffuse color to black and, say, the specular color to a bright orange/red color, your material would look like copper metal (as all colors but orange/red would be absorbed and such only reflect orange/red) The glossy is to set the horizontal and vertical "roughness" of the shader surface in order to make blurry reflections.

I'm maybe guessing you have set the specular color to white like you would in a typical shader think you'll get a white highlight. But as Mihai has said so well, highlights in reality (what ever that is) are nothing more that high light intensities being reflected of a surface.

So this is at least one bug Maxwell doesn't have.

[pluMmet]

Thanks Pixel Artist- Ya this is very different from the other renderers. I had no idea how different. When what has become common terminology changes so much there should be an explanation.

Did I miss a huge thread in this past month explaining all this?

No matter. Thanks