Advanced Micro provides fine-grained control over a material’s microsurface details, allowing you to adjust the appearance of subtle texture variations that affect how light interacts with the surface. This is useful for adding realism to materials by enhancing tiny bumps, scratches, or irregularities.
This shading model uses an Advanced Micro Map (Grayscale) texture input, which defines the intensity and distribution of microsurface details. White areas enhance detail, while black areas reduce it.
Its use cases include:
- Adding subtle roughness or detail to metals, plastics, or painted surfaces.
- Enhancing the realism of worn or aged materials.
- Fine-tuning highlights and micro-reflections for complex materials.
Maps can be created or sourced in several ways:
- Toolbag Library: Use pre-made textures.
- Texture Projects in Toolbag: Paint or procedurally generate the map.
- Third-Party Applications: Author maps externally.
| Setting | Description |
|---|---|
| Microsurface Map Texture Slot | Add a microsurface 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. |
| Mode | The interpretation mode of the texture map. Roughness indicates that higher values are rougher, while Smoothness, also referred to as “gloss,” indicates that higher values are smoother. |
| Maximum | Specifies the maximum microsurface value. Values from the texture are scaled to be no greater than this value. |
| Minimum | Specifies the minimum microsurface value. Values from the texture are shifted to be no less than this value. |
| Exponent | Applies an exponential curve to values from the texture. This can be useful for color space adjustments and artistic modification. A curve value of 2.2 approximates the sRGB color space, and a curve value of 0.455 approximates an inverse sRGB transform. A value of 1.0 indicates no curve (default). |
| Horizon Smoothing | Sets the intensity of the horizon smoothing effect, increasing the material’s apparent smoothness at extreme angles. |
