The Advanced Metalness shader provides extra controls for fine-tuning metallic surfaces. Unlike the standard Metalness workflow, this model allows you to configure both Metalness and Specular values, offering greater flexibility for materials that require precise control over reflectivity and highlight behavior.
Advanced Metalness use cases include:
- Materials that blend metallic and non-metallic properties.
- Fine-tuning reflection strength on metals for more realistic results.
- Creating complex layered materials, such as coated metals or alloys.
This shading model uses two texture inputs:
- Metalness Map (Grayscale): Defines metallic (white) and non-metallic (black) regions.
- Specular Map (Grayscale): Adjusts the strength of specular reflections across the surface, allowing more nuanced control than the basic metalness workflow.
Both maps can be created in several ways:
- Bake Projects in Toolbag: Generate maps from high-resolution data.
- Toolbag Library: Use pre-made textures.
- Texture Projects in Toolbag: Paint or procedurally generate maps.
- Third-Party Applications: Author maps externally.
| Setting | Description |
|---|---|
| Metalness Map Texture Slot | Add a metalness texture by clicking on the slot or dragging and dropping one from the Library. |
| Channel Selection | Determines which channel of the texture map will be used. It’s useful when, instead of using multiple single textures, you use one texture with different grayscale maps in the different texture channels: Red, Green, Blue, and Alpha. |
| Invert | Inverts the metalness value so that white defines insulators, and black defines metals. |
| Specular Map Texture Slot | Add a specular texture by clicking on the slot or dragging and dropping one from the Library. |
| Channel Selection | Determines which channel of the texture map will be used. It’s useful when, instead of using multiple single textures, you use one texture with different grayscale maps in the different texture channels: Red, Green, Blue, and Alpha. |
| Specular Value | Sets the reflectivity value for insulators or non-metals. |
| Invert | Inverts the metalness value so that white defines insulators, and black defines metals. |
| Specular Curve | Adds a curve to the specular input to match the Frostbite engine. When the slider is set to 0.16, a gray value of 128 equates to 4% reflectivity. |
| Conserve Energy | Energy conservation darkens the albedo map to ensure that the sum of diffuse and specular light is not greater than the amount of light that hits the object. |
