8

1378 Chapter 16: Material Editor, Materials, and Maps
• Click to turn on Set Luminance
From Light (below the Luminance setting),
then in a viewport, click the light.
After you choose the light, the button turns off
once more.
Tip: If you are using a radiosity solution (page
3–50)
,makesuretoturnonEmitEnergy
(Based On Luminance) for any material whose
luminance is greater than zero. This co ntrol
is on the
Advanced Lighting Override rollout
(page 2–1381)
.
Inter face
Diff use Color —Controls the diffuse color (p age
3–1023)
.Thediffusecoloristhecolorthismaterial
has in direct light. Click the color swatch to display
the
Color Selector (page 1–157) and change the
diffuse color.
Set color to tex tur e
avera ge—
Click to change the diffuse color to an
averageofthecolorsinthecurrentdiffusemap.(If
nomapisassigned,thisbuttonhasnoeffect.)
This button is useful when you are going to reduce
the diffuse map’s Amount. When the diffuse map
pattern appears over an average of itself, for most
kinds of materials the effect is more realistic than
when the pattern appears ov er an unrelated color.
Wa rn in g : This button will change the diffuse color even
if the diffuse map is turned of f.
Diffuse M ap—
These controls assign a map to
the material’s diff use component. To assign a
map, click the oblong button (labeled “None” by
default). This displays the Materia l/Map Browser.
In the Browser, choose the map type, and then
click OK. If you choose Bitmap as the map typ e,
an additional dialog prompts you to choose the
part icular bitmap file to use.
Whileamapisassignedtothematerial,itsname
appearsasthemapbutton’slabel.
• Amount spinner—The spinner at the left sets the
amount of diffuse map to use. This value is a
percentage: at 100.0, only the map is visible;
at lower amounts, the diffuse color shows
through; at 0.0, the map is not visible at all.
•
On/off —The check box between the spinner
andthemapbuttonisanon/offswitch.When
on, the map appears in the material. When off,
the map does not appear.
Shininess—Sets the shininess of the material. This
value is a percentage: at 100.0, the material is as
shiny as possible; at lower va lues, it is less shiny; at
0.0, it is not shiny at all.
In general, the shinier a material is, the smaller its
specular highlights appear. Specular highlights are
reflections of the lights that illuminate the material.
(The index of refraction c an a lso affect the size of
highlights.) Shininess also controls how much the
material reflects other objects in the scene.
Note: Shininess a lone is not sufficient to produce
specular reflections and highlights on a surface.
Yo u m u s t a l s o c o n s i d e r t h e I n d e x O f R e f r a c t i o n
(IOR), described b elow.
The amount spinner for a shininess map sca les the
map. If no map is assigned, the spinner value is
used by itself.