← All ideas
  • Published 8 Jun 2022

PBR Shader Documentation - clarifications on Metallic/specular

In the PBR node docs, for specularity, it states that: "Amount of dielectric specular reflection. Specifies facing (along normal) reflectivity in the most common 0 - 8% range."

What's not stated is that for metals, the specularity is high (70-100%) range. So, as I see it, there are 2 possibilities: 1) the specular setting is only for non-metals, and is ignored for metals (in which case can't adjust for metals), or 2) the specular setting is also for metals, but then the question is whether or not it's mapped to a specularity range more appropriate for metals (70-100%), or do you just need to set it within that 70-100% range manually

And also feel that the metalness setting itself should be documented better to explain what all it's effects are - for instance, is it enhancing 'overall reflectivity strength', or is it affecting specularity directly by shifting the range? Would be good to get the actual effects into the docs.

100%

Development Status: Open

Upvote 2 Downvote 0
JeffG
8 Jun 2022

1 Comment

zuorion

Amount of dielectric specular reflection

or in other words mean:

Amount of non-metal specular reflection

In reality when you set crazy values there is effect, but afaik disney's intention was not to tackle it for metals and leave it as 0.5.