New Hilights Feature

[Trapezium]

Hi Vlado/ Tisho,

I've been working with the new Hilight feature and so I was wondering if you could explain this statement in the help index...

Some improvements in VRayMtl - separate control over hilights and glossy reflections. In addition, glossy hilights and reflections have been improved to act in a more physically accurate way

How do they work in conjunction? After reading, in another thread, that the highlights understand the shape of a VRayLight I hoped that I could just turn off Trace reflections for certain materials in the VRayMat and get just a representation of the light as a highlight but it appears to fade by half. I've found a work around by simply doubling the reflection value but I'm not too sure how good this idea is. Sometimes I'll have to add an Output map or adjust the Output of a map. Does this sound effective to you?

Also, are the hilights suppose to work with the Fresnel checkbox? It doesn't appear to be working in 1.46.04

Thanks,
--Jon

[TishoChaos]

Hi Trapezium!

I will give you a brief explanation of the Reflect section of the vraymat.

First, the Reflect is the power of the reflection/highlight on the material and is analogical to the Specular level of the Standard mat. The Highlight/Refl. Glossiness is analogical to the Glossiness setting of the Standard mat. The bigger the value of the glossy, the crispier is the hilighlight/reflection. The smaller it gets, the blurrier is the glossy.

Highlight Gloss and Refl Gloss are almost the same with a few differences - highlights gloss can be used when you dont want reflection on the mat. In that case you can turn off the Trace reflections option of the mat and use the Reflect color to control the power of the highlight. Highlights Gloss is affected ONLY by the vraylights, in contrast to Refl Gloss which is reflection. If you have a vraylight in the scene, and you want to control highlights and you dont have reflection, use highlights gloss.

If you dont have any lighting in the scene (only the default max's), then you can test how if highlights gloss is ungrayed, then its value is what is taken into consideration, not the refl gloss value. Also, Fresnel Refl. are Reflections, and the result you want to achieve very much depends on the Reflect color(power of reflection) in conjunction with Fresnels. Fresnels make the reflection dependent on the viewing angle of the surface (making it more diffuse colored, if the power of reflection (Reflect) is bigger(more white)). Highlights gloss works in conjunction with Fresnel Refl.

As a general rule, the highlights on a material are calculated as a combination of the highlight glossy and the refl glossy, so if you turn off the reflections on a material, by switching off trace refl, the highlight will be less powerful since it doesnt have the additional refl glossy power in it. Turning off fresnel reflections will usually make it brighter. I hope this answers your problem.

Thank you

Did anybody got something out of all these sentences?!

[Trapezium]

As a general rule, the highlights on a material are calculated as a combination of the highlight glossy and the refl glossy, so if you turn off the reflections on a material, by switching off trace refl, the highlight will be less powerful since it doesnt have the additional refl glossy power in it. Turning off fresnel reflections will usually make it brighter. I hope this answers your problem.

Yes it does answer my question. I'll just have to do a few tests to get what I'm looking for, thanks much

--Jon