Quote - Not sure how I'm supposed to feel about a reflection value of 3, but the rest I'm fairly happy with. I think.

Remember I've been saying over and over that you can't look at just one term and make sense of it. There are more terms involved here.

In the original shader you showed, the user had Reflect_Lite_Mult turned on. This introduces additional calculations into the Reflection channel.

In particular, Reflection_Lite_Mult will multiply the amount of incoming light with the Reflection channel data. This means that when light is less strong, the Reflect_Color will be diminished.

WARNING: This has no basis in reality. YOU SHOULD NOT USE THIS FEATURE IF YOU DO NOT WANT ME TO KICK YOUR ASS.

It is something (ugly) we have to take into account when analyzing what a shader is doing. Reflect_Lite_Mult is a difficult one to separate out. It means that the amount of incoming light is multiplied with the value, sort of like the Diffuse node would do. So we can approximate this flag with a white Diffuse node who's Diffuse_Value is 1.

Notice also that the value plugged into Reflect_Color (the Sphere_Map) is ALSO plugged into the Reflection_Value.

Whew. This is a crapload of nonsense, but if you're trying to reproduce it, here you go.

The Reflection channel is contributing

Reflection_Color * Reflection_Value * Reflect_Lite_Mult

to the sum of the output color.

I'm not going to measure that blue that's in there, just let's call that the reflBlue.

Based on the value and the connection we know that

Reflection_Color = reflBlue * Sphere_Map

We know based on the value and the connection that

Reflection_Value = 3 * Sphere_Map

So the contribution from the reflection channel, altogether, is

3 * reflBlue * (Sphere_Map ** 2) * Diffuse(WHITE, 1)

In other words, the pattern from the Weave (after sphere-map projecting it as a reflection map) is squared, multiplied with the blue, tripled, and also multiplied with the amount of incoming light.

Why!?! No f'ing clue, but if you're trying to reproduce that shader, and only add the GC effect, you have to reproduce all of that.

RV:

You didn't do all that, so your new shader is going to act very differently.

Furthermore, you didn't do the GC right - remember you must add together everything all into one color, then and only then can you perform the final gamma correction.

In your GC version, you left that whole business in its own channel. A GC shader does not leave anything plugged into anywhere else on the Poser Surface that generates color. All must go through your Pow node.

You must add everything together yourself, then send it through the Pow node.

---

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)