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The Specular Lighting Thread: For Skin Artists


-Rudel-

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There are many skinners pondering the new SPEC in the DCS World series....Including myself.

 

Through my trial and errors, I'll post what I find, and try to keep this simple. I encourage those with knowledge to share the wealth. :book:

 

When you look at the OEM SPEC *.dds files of the P-51D 'Bare Metal' skin, you notice the files use greenish and magneta colors to distinguish from flat & matte, to reflections.

 

From a beginners stand-point, "The greener it is, the more matte it is; The more magneta it is, the shinier & more reflective it is." But there's more to it!

 

See attachment 1

 

For the most part, to achieve the colors that you see in the files, you have to adjust R(ED), G(REEN), B(LUE) values of each layer you create or want to have specular.

 

"To be honest, I couldn't replicate the colors manually."

 

But you can also use gray scale colors where black is matte, and white is shiny. If you had noticed, the official P-51D template has a SPEC group that nearly mimics the DIF group.

 

  • Delete the SPEC group that's in the template and duplicate the DIF group.
  • Within the duplicated group, add an Adjustable Layer at the top of the group.
  • Now slide the Saturation Bar all the way to the left.

See attachment 2

 

 

In attachment 2, you see that the skin has a lot of light grey colors. If you're making a metal skin, it's ok. But we need a dull coat on this Desert Rat.

  • * Begin by creating a new layer and giving it a very dark gray color.
  • Now hide all the layers except the Color group.

See attachment 3

 

For peace of mind; doing this unclutters the workspace and allows you to know what you have worked on already.

 

The next part is pretty much up to you adjusting the layers. Keep in mind the layers properties you used in the DIF group copied over. Adjust as nessecary to achieve your look.

 

* See my next "help" post about finding the right metal colors for reflections.

SPEC01.thumb.jpg.2e32d50fb3b1a1fa953aa88b056abf2c.jpg

SPEC02.thumb.jpg.a1075f28e7b5535a7520319b229407f9.jpg

SPEC03.thumb.jpg.f8008925bbae86b1f832cbd9c3ac2313.jpg

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-Rudel- cool stuff!

 

It is my understanding that the 2 or 3 channels define simple parameters of the specular colour map. I've been checking the extremes to see what is doing what (spec maps of 255,0,0, 0,255,0 and 0,0,255). The more green, the less reflection you get. 255 is fully matt surface, see the left wing on the screen below:

 

Clipboard01.jpg

 

Flat texture, no reflection at all (that's 0 / 255 /0), this can be obviously tweaked by getting slightly less green and adding some R and B (that's your cyan actually). Right wing is fully blue iirc (0/0/255) and it's pure mirror and the Blue channel controls the intensity of the reflections. The problem is that in game it is mainly reflecting the sky which is blue, hence the blueish tint. It's not that visible in the model viewer and becomes more obvious in the game. Depends on the weather settings and ligt condition (like in real life). Red channel (255/0/0) is taking care of the actual specular highlights (colour) and it seems to be adding some gloss and / or white colour into the reflections, that is your shininess channel. Some spec maps are grayscale, some are using alpha channel (RGBA), this seems to be 3-channel colour specular mapping where each channel, red, green and blue, are creating their bit, you can combine them as needed, e.g. your cyan would be no green but lots of blue and red and I don't think it would get rid of the blueish tint. The background diffuse colour has also got big impact on the display in the game's engine. You need to use some shade of ligth grey if you want to depict polished aluminium, the problem is that on brighter diffuse colour, the blue reflection will be more visible. This is OK in real life in a bright day, but looks a bit odd (unnatural) in game.

 

I am using green for matt aluminuim, e.g. tom surfaces of the Mustang wings as they were manufactured that way - dull, filled and sanded:

 

RGB 68 / 195 /52

 

For shiny stuff, e.g. mirror polished aluminium, I use 162 / 155 / 172 with a wee bit more red on the highlights. That looks, in my opinion, pretty good in the game's engine at any time of the day and any weather.

 

The best way of making a specular map for your Mustang is by creating a Diffuse map first (of your shiny aircraft) with no markings, stencils etc and save it as a flat BMP image. Then completely desaturate it, edit the G channel (select and invert), then turn the R and B back on, which gives you final specular map. All you need to do then is just save it as a *dds and use it in game - your pony will be nice and shiny. The lighter the diffuse clour, the more light it will reflect in the game engine. If you want to add some markings or matt parts (blue nose for example, you will add this as a selection on the specular map. And use green for matt as described above. You can tweak the opacity of the green layer to your liking to obtain semigloss surfaces etc. You can also create a fully matt Pony spec texture by the same method as described above, but using dark background colour. And combine both shiny and matt layers as necessary by the means of selections. This is at least my preference as the specular texture made from final diffuse map with all markings and paint on it will give you very raw result with white colour burned in as the shiniest mirror.

 

Feel free to experiment with the settings and tweak your specular texture depending on if you want to achieve high reflectivity of a restored and polished Mustang or dull surface of slightly annodised aluminium of wartime examples. Make sure your painted things, e.g. invasion stripes or unit markings and codes are matt so they would stand up on the glossy aluminium surface like in real life.


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Here a short tutorial of how to start, used for Adobe Photoshop, but the process is similar in Gimp or PSP...

 

1. Create your diffuse textures.

 

This is your basic aircraft 'skin' with the paint job, all markings, stencils, noseart etc as you want it to be shown on the actual aircraft. I strongly suggest using original ED template released here:

 

http://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/downloads/misc/texture_template_of_p_model_51d/

 

You get 4 *.PSD you can open in Photoshop or similar to start with. Edit at will, I hope you have basic understanding of how to work with layers. This guide focuses on creating specular maps for your skins so I assume this is the easy bit for you. (it is indeed with the template containing all you need to create a custom skin). The aluminium part of the skin is obviously light gray colour. We want to get this parts of the aircrafts surface shiny in the game.

 

I also strongly suggest you use the ED's modelviewer to preview your work easily: http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=88508

 

For extra polished aluminium, I prefer to use RGB 160 174 180 as a background colour. The darker colour you use, the less reflective it becomes in the game once you combine your Diffuse and Specular map (Texture).

 

Let's start with the file 'p51D_DIF_Fuz_Front.psd' from the above template which is the front part of the fuselage with the nose, canopy and radiator scoop of your Pony. You will need some way of creating a DDS file out of the PSD from Adobe Photoshop. I suggest you use the native plugin by nVidia:

 

http://developer.nvidia.com/nvidia-texture-tools-adobe-photoshop

 

So you can open and save DDS files straight ouf of Photoshop.

 

1. Create your specular textures.

 

There are several methods to achieve similar results. Here is the easiest one. I will create specular map for the front part of the P-51 fuselage for all-metal P-51 and I will add a sample noseart and paint to it later.

 

a) Starting with the diffuse texture - turn all your marking, paint and other layers OFF so only background colour, panel lines, rivets and weathering layers are visible similar to the picture below:

 

01.jpg

 

(I left some black stencils and red bits and bobs ON for now)

 

b) save your texture as straightforward 24bit BMP file and edit is as follows:

 

click IMAGE -> ADJUSTMENTS -> DESATURATE

(or use the shortcut Ctrl+Shift+U)

 

Your texture will be desaturated, you obviously lose all colours etc.

 

c) click 'CHANNELS' on the right hand side

 

02.jpg

 

d) click on green channel (Ctrl+2). The channels are identical now, as you have got the whole thing in grayscale.

 

e) Invert the green channel IMAGE -> ADJUSTMENTS -> INVERT (or Ctrl+I)

 

you will see how the first line representing all 3 channels changes, click it to switch all channels back on:

 

03.jpg

 

and save as a DTX1 *.DDS with no mip maps (afik this is the correct format, it certainly works OK and the size matches the default files made by ED)

 

This is your specular map to match your diffuse texture with no markings on it.

 

Name the former p51D_DIF_Fuz_Front.dds (mip maps, size 2.66MB) and the latter with lodts of green and cyan p51D_SPEC_Fuz_Front.dds (no mip maps, size 2.0MB).

 

Using these two files in the model viewer (or in the game if you wish) will give you a result of very shiny and highly polished surface of your Mustang. You can see that everything that was dark on your desaturated BMP texture is now green on the specular texture and reflects very little light. Everything that was light, e.g. our light grey background colour is now cyan in the specular map. These parts of the surface are considered a highly reflective parts by the game and it will appear mirror like. In this example, very light colour has been used resulting in lots of cyan. Too much perhaps unless you intend to create a highly polished P-51 example.

 

Now try to go back to the beginning, to your PSD file with all markings switched off and change the background colour to darker shade of grey, say RGB 102 / 108 /111 and repeat. this process with desaturating and inverting the green channel. You will get a specular dds file with much less cyan colour in it and the surface will therefore appear much less reflective in the game engine.

 

You can experiment with various settings and find what looks best to you.

 

The conclusion is that whatever you do, just get yourself a desaturated texture of your standard diffuse texture (your actual skin) with the background colour lighter on the surfaces you want to see shiny (cyan) and darker bits for parts you want to keep matt (green bits on the Spec map).

 

Keeping your weathering and lines / rivets on the initial texture (the one you are about to desaturate) is a good thing as it adds to the plasticity of the final skin. Also, if you keep your paint chips in there lighter, they will be more visible as shiny missing bits on matt painted surface. Very realistic indeed!

 

My personal method is combining few pre-made spec maps varying from all shiny (lots of cyan R+B) to all matt (very green based on dark surface) and playing with the opacity depending on the result I'd like to achieve on that particular part of the aircraft, e.g. selecting markings via Ctrl+D and pasting that selection onto matt bit. But once you understand the principle, you will find your own way of achieving light effects as needed.

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Wow, now that makes sense. I was getting confused on inverting method, but now I see.

 

So...can this be done for each layer instead of flattening it, then when finished, flatten it?

 

My next post, I'll show you what I have been experimenting with.


Edited by -Rudel-
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Wow, now that makes sence. I was getting confused on inverting method, buyt now I see.

 

So...can this be done for each layer instead of flattening it, then when finished, flatten it?

 

My next post, I'll show you what I have been experimenting with.

 

Whatever works best for yourself. I'd prefer to create a specific grayscale dif map based on each skin, it's not too difficult and you will need to tweak the contrast and so on anyway for best results. But of course you can do that per layer, there is no problem with that and you might get better control of the various surfaces and tweak it that way, e.g. panel lines and small details complete separate and then export. Entirely up to you. Yes please, if you can add anything or share your experiments that would be great!

 

OldCrow - thanks mate but I can't take any credit for that as it's really pretty straightforward stuff based on what was in the PSD template (SPEC group) and what has been observed in the default skins. I am glad that helped though and I hope we'll see many Pony skins...

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...create a specific grayscale dif map based on each skin, ...tweak the contrast and so on anyway for best results....you can do that per layer,

 

That's exactly what I did in my first post. :) I've been saving my SPEC as DXT5, is that ok too?...

 

So what I've done is start off working in layers instead of flattening it and adjusting. In the example I'm using the Shadow layer for the wings only. It's a whitish color set to multiply.

 

I cut an outline from the background, so the wings would not have a green tint when I adjust the RGB.

 

I'm not positive about changing RGB values because I see 2 'output' and 'input.' dot adjusters. Which one do I adjust? Both or one only? So I began by adjusting only one channel at a time using 'output' from the upper right corner and dragging it down the right side. R and B only as Ali recommends.

 

As you see in the attachment, I divided up the wing with different values. Top Wing is Red adjustment only, while the Bottom wing is Blue only. The inner most sections is a combination just to see.

 

My values are below starting from the wing tips:

 
Top Wing -            Red Channel 'Output' :  255, 191, 126, 64, 0
Top Wing Most inner - Red/Blue Channel 'Output' : 126 (light green)

Bottom Wing -            Blue Channel 'Output' : 255, 191, 126, 64, 0
Bottom Wing -            Red Channel 'Input': 4 / Blue Channel 'Output' 0 (darkest yellow)
Bottom Wing Most inner - Red/Blue Channel 'Output' : 191 (lighter green)

 

The red only adjustments did not do squat for my test until i changed the blue values, as you see on the inner most wing.

 

The blue only channel worked out well for what I was hoping. It appears the channel controls reflection saturation. From what I see, the yellower it is, the less color reflection you get.

 

As you probably noticed it also affected the shaded areas when I turned the aircraft upside down.

Red-Blue_Only.thumb.jpg.2ac02515433f396ba522dd1b3393d785.jpg


Edited by -Rudel-
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My next test, I just did the green channel. This time I also included an inverted bottom wing.

 

On the top wing, this green channel appears to control the light intensity at a given angle. The inner most is the brightest. As the angle increases to 90* over the wing the intensity levels out to normal.

 

On the bottom, the layer was inverted creating no reflection or shine at all. I thought there would be at least a small shine, but I'm guessing the light grey is making it hard to see.

 

I noticed as I decreased the output in the upper right corner from 255 to 0, the opposite color started to appear too.

 

The rule of thumb with RGB when inverted is.

 

Red opposite of Cyan

Green "" Magneta

Blue "" Yellow

Green_Only.thumb.jpg.57604c90240b0894c249d87e5803ee39.jpg


Edited by -Rudel-
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Specular Testing With Colors on DIF *.DDS

 

Here are more test results, but this time using some colors on the DIF *.dds.

 

Please see/read attachments. :book:

 

My conclusions as far as adjusting only one channel:

Red Channel: Affects Color Tint From The Sun

Green Channel: Affects Glare Width/Diameter On The Object

Blue Channel: Affects The Shadow Color

 

However, on an all metal skin:

Red Channel: Affects The Blue-ish Color At Extreme Angles.

Green Channel: Affects Glare Width/Diameter On The Object

Blue Channel: Affects The Shadow Color / Sky Reflection Color

 

Looking forward in your thoughts guys... :thumbup:

Red-Red-Inverted-Colored-DIF.thumb.jpg.4a62c2a5aa6215a976493ef95d6d3945.jpg

Green-Green-Inverted-Colored-DIF.thumb.jpg.017b5cabba8d65d4b61e1b986c394bf6.jpg

Blue-Blue-Inverted-Colored-DIF.thumb.jpg.b43e8bae08d30e06759405a11966e7ee.jpg

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  • ED Team

R- the intensity of the flare (the dark - no glare, bright - bright glare)

G- width of the specular spot

B-degree of reflection (dark - the surface does not reflect-mat, light - the maximum reflection - a mirror).

but for simplicity, the channel G is inverted R

" Умное выражение лица - это еще не признак ума. Все глупости на Земле делаются именно с этим выражением лица..."

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Excellent information!...

 

На здоровье !


Edited by -Rudel-
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))) tnx

" Умное выражение лица - это еще не признак ума. Все глупости на Земле делаются именно с этим выражением лица..."

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  • 2 months later...

I'm busy with a skin at the moment and am in desperate need of spec map adjustment but are spec maps accessible and editable to users of DCS A10 1.1.1.1 or is this new to DCS world?

 

 

Sorry if that's a stupid question but I can't find any files related to it in my DCS A10 folders. If only available in DCS world, will I be able to edit A10 specular maps if I move over from 1.1.1.1?

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Received your P.M. and replied :)

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  • 1 year later...
  • 11 months later...

inspirated by the Sabre specular map and the post above

I've worked to improve metal skin SPEC files of Mustang with more natural effects

 

here the result on my favourite un-historical skin home made. 'little lilly from Blacourt II" My wife in nose art, me as pilot head, and blacourt the village i live in france ;-)

 

you can download original Spec file in DCS User files P51 skins. http://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/884981/

125317056_dcs2014-09-2013-24-32-03_1.thumb.jpg.714eaf0e16ff0734843fc65e282030e9.jpg

1881410492_dcs2014-09-2013-32-42-19_1.thumb.jpg.62cf9d8e7372e0271d41f6e6f929ace8.jpg

1395628850_dcs2014-09-2013-34-44-99_1.thumb.jpg.8599c9811031784c1eac7f846da89d12.jpg

p51D_Spec_Fuz_Rear.jpg.15d45633b2e02685fb5954e527ea0fa6.jpg


Edited by snowsniper
 

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thank you AMVI_Jay

 

I've just uploaded a RAF bare metal skin with It. ( without nose art, tail number and so on for anyone can tweak it as he wants)

 

attachment.php?attachmentid=104799&d=1411299180

 

attachment.php?attachmentid=104800&d=1411299180

 

if tweaked save it as a DDS file in DX5 mipmaped format

 

http://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/893570/

 

 

 

PS: i've done a new P51 cockpit too but it still a WIP

http://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/893151/

main.thumb.jpg.f247209afa21ee960fa7ef80ce45a4dc.jpg

main2.thumb.jpg.b4bb5a0c4b913ef35713ed11702cb7af.jpg


Edited by snowsniper
 

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thank you AMVI_Jay

 

I've just uploaded a RAF bare metal skin with It. ( without nose art, tail number and so on for anyone can tweak it as he wants)

 

attachment.php?attachmentid=104799&d=1411299180

 

attachment.php?attachmentid=104800&d=1411299180

 

if tweaked save it as a DDS file in DX5 mipmaped format

 

http://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/893570/

 

 

 

PS: i've done a new P51 cockpit too but it still a WIP

http://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/893151/

 

Great job

 

Really good looking skin... the best so far

 

Any chances to publish the Photoshop file, and/or the skin without any national markings?

 

Thank you

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You can use that one with both psd & dds DIF files here

http://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/779984/

 

it's the set i used to do mine, without changing original light grey colours except for the nose of the pony.

And then, just put my Four "Specular" files from my RAF P51 skin, inside the directory (overwrite) for the specific metal reflect effect.

edit the lua file and check file names are ok.

 

it's done ... test it.

 

hope you could do your personal livery that way. don't forget to upload !

:thumbup:

 

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WOW Snowsniper, there's few minutes I've discovered your repaint and WOW it's incredible !!!

With the same bare metal with other repaints like USA Force ?

Thanks in advance, Skull.

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