Parallax, is it worth it over specular ?
by Andy Wright · in Torque 3D Professional · 08/14/2013 (6:34 am) · 28 replies
Ok, I've always been a fan of parallax on terrain materials but I've been making textures from a new source, and playing around with what I used to do for parallax maps, and an old idea I had before that let specular work on small areas of terrain by overlaying a transparent decal with specular on, then testing some textures on a shape too, to see how they look.
I've come to the conclusion that while parallax is nice and all for that extra 'geometry' detail when done right that makes it pop out at you, its visual gains arent as much as what specular would give to terrains as to the real 'feel' of the material... mostly due to what a good normal map gives with the shadows having parallax on top is just a fancy extra boost for the normals, yet specular would add alot more visually to the materials real feel/look.
with that recent thread about the blending or materials and using opacity masks in one of the alpha channels, im starting to personally feel that to get T3D's large terrains looking top notch, it might be worth considering removing the parallax pass all together and replace with it with specular, as like for like comparisons imo you gain more from the specular... add along side that an opacity mask to control the blending of materials, and i think we'd be about there with terrain materials...
I've come to the conclusion that while parallax is nice and all for that extra 'geometry' detail when done right that makes it pop out at you, its visual gains arent as much as what specular would give to terrains as to the real 'feel' of the material... mostly due to what a good normal map gives with the shadows having parallax on top is just a fancy extra boost for the normals, yet specular would add alot more visually to the materials real feel/look.
with that recent thread about the blending or materials and using opacity masks in one of the alpha channels, im starting to personally feel that to get T3D's large terrains looking top notch, it might be worth considering removing the parallax pass all together and replace with it with specular, as like for like comparisons imo you gain more from the specular... add along side that an opacity mask to control the blending of materials, and i think we'd be about there with terrain materials...
About the author
Recent Threads
#22
08/18/2013 (4:53 pm)
Currently we have parallax on terrain, and no specular, back in the beta phases of t3d the decision was made to go with parallax over specular because of the amount of draw calls and render passes was beginning to rack up alot with terrains. My point was, even though I have always loved the effect from parallax for certain materials, I think in hindsight, specular would have given a lot more overall as an all round effect...
#23
08/21/2013 (2:40 pm)
Is there anyone out there that would want to work on this even if its as a secondary build, id like to see how it turns out using specular on terrain instead of parallax, even if its replacing the current parallax pass with a specular pass, keeping a spec map in the normal alpha replacing the parallax map in there. Im not a coder by a long stretch so dont know what amount of works involved in this... 
#24
08/21/2013 (4:34 pm)
@Andy: I'm interested in terrain rendering in general, and I do think it is worthwhile looking into this. I could say I'll get around to it eventually, but I'd be talking about a matter of months probably. When it comes to T3D I have a few other things I need to finish baking, not to mention real life. Terrain specular is a good idea and I do think it will be useful, but I can't make any promises. Hopefully someone else is more excited than that? 
#25
Specular may look fancy on terrain, but it will not be realistic.
Natural materials mostly become reflective, if they get wet or covered in ice, but this should be handled in a post effect or so.
08/22/2013 (1:18 am)
I wonder why you all want specular so much, I have not come across many situations where I want to have a terrain-like material have specularity, since in reality the terrain is also not reflective.Specular may look fancy on terrain, but it will not be realistic.
Natural materials mostly become reflective, if they get wet or covered in ice, but this should be handled in a post effect or so.
#26
mud, wet earth, river stones, smooth rock, grass, moss... just to name a few that do reflect a lot of light
08/22/2013 (1:37 am)
Quote:since in reality the terrain is also not reflective.
Specular may look fancy on terrain, but it will not be realistic
mud, wet earth, river stones, smooth rock, grass, moss... just to name a few that do reflect a lot of light
#27
Sure it would be nice in some cases, but I have not found many so far where a specular map would improve much.
Maybe someone else can show some examples "terrain with specular2 vs "terrain without specular", it would be easier to judge from examples which one improves more.
08/22/2013 (4:13 am)
Yes, but most of them only because they are wet, but a material or texture is not wet by itself, so we would more need a wetness effect.Sure it would be nice in some cases, but I have not found many so far where a specular map would improve much.
Maybe someone else can show some examples "terrain with specular2 vs "terrain without specular", it would be easier to judge from examples which one improves more.
#28
08/22/2013 (4:18 am)
Im currently at work and on my phone. I'll do some test screenies when I get home in a couple of hours with a little decal hack to show spec on small areas of terrain next to same texture without under same conditions. 
Torque Owner Richard Ranft
Roostertail Games
@Adam - I think I actually meant making that choice at the mission level, but per-material would be great. I'm not sure, but I think the terrain would still require an additional render pass if materials were used that mixed "modes" like that.