In one of Silverblades' great tutorials he mentions for a poser import:

"Additonally, to improve the person's look, remember that highlights are rarely flat and even, so link the colour or bump map to the Highlight tab if you wish (select greyscale when you link, not Alpha)."

But how do I do that? I can get to the function editor but how do I connect as he said to do?

Thanks.

Michael

In the highlights tab of the advanced material editor, tick the "Variable highlights" box, next right click the function preview sphere and choose edit. Now in the function editor, the highlights output is selected. Connect it  to the bump or color function (bitmap or procedural) by grabbing the small arrow that sticks out of the highlights output. From the drop down  menu (greyscale or alpha) that will pop up, choose greyscale.

As Bruno says :)
I'm working on stuff to show this, will post in hour or two, ok?

here we go :)

 I wonder if that texture would make my terrains look more attractive....

Weezer
hm, give entirely new meaning to the "Materhorn"
or would that be the "MILFerhorn"? :sneaky:

 LOL!!!

Sometimes a Poser texture comes with a "specular" texture map in addition to the colour and bump maps. This can be used for the variable highlights. In fact, I think it may be a good thing to make one anyway, if it's missing (e.g a version of the bump map with higher (or lower) contrast or something).
If you want a "partially wet" look for something (a road after rain, Vicky after having a shower etc.), you can also make a separate reflection map to be used with "variable reflections".
Lars "bigbraader".

You show those connections on the side of the node, as does the manual.  Nothing is ever hooked up to them.  Are they inputs or outputs, or does it make a difference?  Thanks to anyone who can clear this up for me :)

John

They nodes on the side are for connecting other functions to :)
they are used for creating complex functions, you can use a fractal to give random output to drive say, another fractal's inputs, or many other things.

i'ts best seen by trying for yourself, say, start with a cube, Rest its material
give it a bump using a fractal or noise node
then start driving the main function's input nodes with other functions.

this is how folks create really complex procedural functions that give, say, a cratered moon surface, complex terrain heights, or bizarre tehnological machinery looks
:)

Thanks for the suggestion, but my experimenting days are long past.  I don't even know where to begin with this.  My biggest problem is that I don't have broadband and most of the tutorials are video.  I saw a great one on the function editor a couple of weeks ago, but it was so slow that the audio was completely unintelligable.  I watched it for over two hours before I had to give up on it.

I loved Vue 6, but after installing the 8.4 update to Vue 8 I guess I'm wasting my time learning anything.  If you can't save a file and reopen it, it doesn't matter what you learn.

Sorry--just venting.  I'm extremely frustrated.

John