Research & Development for 3D & the Web

A quick, rough bunch of notes relating to Specular Mapping in Photoshop/Maya

A ‘Specular Map’ controls the shininess of a model.

Start by hiding all layers apart from the UV layout layer.

Make a new layer and name it something to do with ‘specular’ so you know what it is for..

Grab a white colour and a soft brush and paint white onto wherever you want there to be shininess.

It’s a good idea to use Gaussion Blur for the layer too so the edges are much softer.

UNDER the shiny layer, create a new layer and fill it with black.

Blur the spec layer a few times until you are happy with the blending and then adjust the OPACITY in such a way until you are equally happy with the strength of the specular map.

Save it out as a targa again, and in the shader for your model, in the ‘specular’ area add a ‘file’ and select your specular map.

If you render before you add the specular map, you will find that the whole model is shiny etc, whereas after adding a specular map, just the areas you specify are shiny giving you the control to make it look nice or at least to look the way you want.