GreenEyedGirl opened this issue on Mar 11, 2010 ยท 113 posts
bagginsbill posted Tue, 16 March 2010 at 10:21 PM
Here I've restored my blue diffuse reflection and my white specular reflections. We have a shiny blue ball.
Why is it that diffuse reflections are colored and specular reflections are white?
Well, the diffuse reflection is not an ordinary bouncing of light. It happens through some complex physics that are probably not worth explaining. It suffices to understand that diffuse reflections change the light color before reflecting it, while specular reflections do not. At least, for most materials they do not. (For metals, the specular reflection does change the light color).
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)