more terminology questions

ok, i know what a bit map is and i know what a bump map is, but what is 'specular' in 'specular strength' and 'specular exponent'? what's specular mean?

craig

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Sethren wrote: I think specular exponent is how far outward the highlights spread?

Yes -- specular strength (or Reflectivity in the Editor) is how strong the reflection is, and specular exponent defines the sharpness of the reflection (called Reflection Blur in the Editor).

The only correction to Sethren's explanation is that we don't use the term "Highlight" in Filter Forge. While the term itself is perfectly valid and well accepted among CG people, we prefer to use the term "Reflection" -- since Filter Forge uses HDRI environments for lighting, and the term Highlight is mostly used for point lights.

We didn't want to use terms like that in the Editor to make it more accessible to people unfamiliar with insider terms like Specular Exponent. The rendered maps, however, are still called by their "industry names" - Bump Map (Height in the Editor), Diffuse Map (Surface Color in the Editor) etc -- because only the pros are going to render those maps.

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Sethren wrote: don't quote me on that......

Well, I just did

thanks guys.

yup, terminology can kill you...or at least put you to sleep

craig