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Specular and metallic map texture channels in the standard shader
What is each channel doing in specular and metallic textures? As an example in a normal image R=red G=green B=blue A=alpha in a heightmap Black= lowest point white = highest point I can't find any documentations regarding this 2 texture maps, I know they are different but what is each channel doing? Thanks!
The R channel of a spec/metallic map is the metallic value, whilst the A channel is specularity. A heightmap just uses the alpha channel.
@Namey5 So why there is some sort of overlay if i use this texture as specular with a red albedo? Look at the blue circle
Answer by PortalMk2 · Jul 29, 2016 at 06:02 PM
When you use Diffuse-Specular-Smoothness setup(the 'Standard(Specular setup)' shader), the layout the of the Specular map is: Specular Intensity(RGB) Smoothness(A). (Note that because of energy conserving, increasing smoothness may usually result in brighter specular.)
When you are using BaseColor-Metallic-Smoothness setup(the 'Standard' shader), the layout of the Metallic map is: Metallic(R) Smoothness(A).
Alpha channel is 'smoothness' in both case.
In BaseColor-Metallic-Smoothness setup, specular intensity (and 'diffuse') is actually computed from BaseColor and Metallic. That is to say, the 'metallic setup' is internally converted to 'specular setup' before lighting calculation.
I think the Metallic setup is more intuitive though.
Answer by Bonfi_96 · Jul 21, 2016 at 05:52 PM
After some tests the specoular map seems to use RGB as color and A as intensity while the metallic map uses R as how metallic is the material an A as smoothness, though I'm not 100% sure
Ah, because I don't use this variant I didn't realise there were separate textures.
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