Splash Posted August 13, 2019 Share Posted August 13, 2019 First, let me say I never spent any time in the "Sandbox." But I have spent a few Midwestern winters looking at sun shining on heavy snow. Is it possible the specular treatments for sand and snow have been mixed up? When I began exploring Version 4.1x, one of the first things I noticed was how shiny/reflective the sand is. Almost like water. So, as an experiment (don't try this at home, kids) I switched the stock "sand1" and "sand2" specular files -- which are blanks -- for the stock "snow1" and "snow2" files -- which are scattered "sparkles." Below is a comparison. I think the stock version, aside from the color, reacts like snow in the sunlight. The modded version, to me, looks more like sand. I don't have a comparison picture of an SB 'deep snow' theme ... I might check that next. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Ssnake Posted August 13, 2019 Members Share Posted August 13, 2019 Could be that you're on to something. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Volcano Posted August 13, 2019 Moderators Share Posted August 13, 2019 Well, the snow texture is indeed intended for snow (the dots/sparkles), as unpacked snow can reflect light on the surface. But the sand specular was a point of debate in the beta in the beta team. The issue of course is that in dawn/dusk situations the light makes the snow look a bit plastic like. However at noon and such, it looks good, as it makes the normal map pop out more, and the duller specular looks not so good at noon situations. So there are pros and cons here. That said, the "blank" sand texture is actually a 8x8 square with specular color, and the color is where it derives its dull or shiny appearance. That color was changed many times, darker, lighter, back and forth until the current result. Its subjective but the snow specular for sand doesn't look good in our opinion, because the dots are too large and probably need to be at a higher density. However you have given us an idea to make a specular similar to snow, but a bit more "noise" and smaller dots and of course less plastic looking - so we will try to make a new and improved one. 🤔 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Volcano Posted August 14, 2019 Moderators Share Posted August 14, 2019 ...actually we just improved the snow textures (some ugly unintended artifacts there). Improved. And then, looking at the sand, we have created some much better (more gritty) specular textures and corrected an issue on the normal map (inverted axis). So, several improvements here in the next patch. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Splash Posted August 14, 2019 Author Share Posted August 14, 2019 You guys are great. Thanks. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stormrider_sp Posted August 14, 2019 Share Posted August 14, 2019 I noticed that something changed from 4.0xx to 4.1xx in terms of reflections. Currently, everything looks a lot more reflexive and sometimes unnatural, highlighting some low res effect of some models and textures. Is there a way I can tune this reflection down? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Ssnake Posted August 14, 2019 Members Share Posted August 14, 2019 Short of modding the specular texture files? No. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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