Change Color of the specular highlight!!

Development Rendering
1

Hey all…

firstly, let me say hi to all of you. this is my first post at the unreal forums!!

My question. Is it possible to change the color of the specular highlight on an object via the material. The way i understand it the “Specular” input defines the amount of specular, and the “Roughness” input defines the matted out defuse nature of the reflections. What i really want to be able to do is to change the color of the specular height (the burned out white), without changing the reflection or the defuse!

I apologize ahead of time, if what im asking for is stupid… this is the visual effects way of thinking :smiley:

Cheers

Rasika

Disclaimer: Im very new to unreal engine, and my day job is as a vfx generalist and developer.

2

I’m not entirely sure but the specular highlight reflects the color of the light source doesn’t it ?

3

You’re thinking of the Old Specular system Rasika, whereby you determine with a coloured specular map what colour the specular highlight should be at any given point on the surface. UE4 doesn’t do this (because it’s not how real materials behave), it instead factors in the colour of the light, the colour of the reflection environment and the colour of the diffuse map of the object.

So in effect, there’s nothing to control because it doesn’t exist. It’s done entirely differently.

4

I guess. but is there a way to put a multiplier or change it?

5

Nope, doesn’t exist I’m afraid! The rendering just doesn’t work that way anymore.

6

You can use a high metallic value to have colored reflections.

7

I used this video to help myself get up with the philosophy of physically based rendering. It helped me a lot!

8

This is limiting our creativity. Really needed the function to customize the highlight color to the way we wanted, even though it might be fake or un-natural.

9

You can fake it using a custom material that’s driven by a Blueprint to give you a Light Vector. It won’t be lit properly though!