Colors that change?

[CODY614]

Alrighty then....The dreaded "Specular.dds."
I'm doing repaints on Flight1's awesome new Mustang....And I kinda need help/advice on what colors do what?
Right on the re-paint template they say that a gold cheat line can have a green 'Pearlescene' in FSX by painting the cheat line 'Green' in the specular layer.
O-kay...now here's were I need the help...If I look at the 'Spec maps' to the paints they did...A dark blue "N-number" on the main texture is a powder(baby) blue on the spec map!
So I guess my question is how does one figure out the spec color?
Please don't say by trial and error....cuz doing .dds textures conversions is labor intense! And then having to boot FSX and load the plane.....
Is there a magic color guide to give a color dumb guy a hand?
Any thoughts or advice would be a life saver!


Jeff

[AGNT_Matt]

specular is just the colour it reflects so if you do your cheat line green it'll reflect green, do it red it reflects red, the only map thats colour dependant and a really big load of work is the bump map... specular is an easy one, for the fuselage colour unless its metal i use a very slightly lighter colour, and for metal i actually use a load of greys and my own ENVmap... but as i said spec map is in full colour just like the main bits you'd normally paint.

[e-b-o-]

Ummm, no. Atm I've 2 coffee cups on my desk: a white one and a green one, the specularity is on both the same: white.

With the specularity, even if it's colored, you'll fake the material prosperties. That means: it doesn't matter if your diffuse color is black, white or pink, as long as it is the same material (in this case paint) it will behave the same. Exceptions will be a metalic or effect paint, but as long as it is the same glossy paint you will have the same specular color.

Another example: matt paint, like on military vehicles/aircraft. This kind of paint isn't as shiny/glossy & reflective for example like car paint. So you choose a darker specular color for it, something like a middletone greyisch blue.

Long story short: As long as it is the same material the specular color isn't different on lines, camouflage or lettering than the rest of the plane. The only way choosing another color is for: having another material or faking something like repainted areas (fresh paint looks different than aged one).

Little hint: pure white in your specular color may overcast the asset. Trial & error is the way how you can figure out, because the values are depending on the game engine.