Quote - I've done enough reading to know that that is how pretty much every program except Poser works. Bagginsbill has been trying to pound this one in... the only way you can get mid-grey to be neutral is by doing some negative math. But my guess is that if you literally map everything, it may be hard to tell the difference.

I love you.

Meanwhile, Believable3D, let's be clear. Whether we talk of a bump map or a specular map, the absolute values recorded in the gray-scale image MEAN NOTHING. They are ratios. The final number will be multiplied with anything of your choosing when you use the image in the material room, i.e. in the shader. You get to multiply it with anything you want.

An 8-bit depth image map is a "unit range" function. It generates numbers from 0 (black) to 1 (white). It cannot produce just any value in between, but only those that represent integer ratios of x/255, where x is 0 to 255.  

When you use it, you get to multiply it and scale it to any range you want. For example, in Bump you choose .1 inch, then the image is black=0 and white = .1 inch.

Same with specular - if I plug the specular map into Specular_Value with a multiplier of 11, then the white represents 11 and the black represents 0.

So it doesn't matter what the absolute value of the map is, because that gets controlled later. All that matters is the ratios of things within the map. If the forehead is twice as shiny as the fingers, then the specmap data in the forehead area needs to be twice the data in the finger area.

I must warn also that if you're eye-balling this, I suggest you eye-ball with gamma correction. Because the specularity without GC looks TOTALLY different. The kind of linear rendering that has been the hallmark of Poser is going away. As soon as the next version of Poser comes out, I'm going to start making fun of people who do linear renders. I'm going to run through the gallery and just ridicule every single one of them, until they either start using GC (materials, postwork, Poser Pro, Poser 8, I don't care just f'ing USE IT) or they leave. Their choice. :)

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DarkEdge, in Poser a gray-scale image is a collection of POSITIVE NUMBERS. Period. Whether it is for displacement or for specular or for generating angels on the head of a pin, if you're using an image as data, it is a collection of positive numbers, between 0 and 1 inclusive.

To produce negative displacement or bump in Poser you need negative numbers.

I have written about this many many many times. As punishment, you must use search to find my definitive posts, including diagrams proving it, and post the links here. LOL

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Renderosity forum reply notifications are wonky. If I read a follow-up in a thread, but I don't myself reply, then notifications no longer happen AT ALL on that thread. So if I seem to be ignoring a question, that's why. (Updated September 23, 2019)