It was my understanding that the blinn should be plugged into the alternate specular channel, which, little as I know, makes some sense to me.

But I'm working with a hair figure where the creator has plugged it into the alternate diffuse. Can someone explain a little bit about the principles here?

Quote - It was my understanding that the blinn should be plugged into the alternate specular channel, which, little as I know, makes some sense to me.

But I'm working with a hair figure where the creator has plugged it into the alternate diffuse. Can someone explain a little bit about the principles here?

I've plugged the blinn into the regular specular already, but never the diffuse or alt diffuse. That sort of baffles me as well.

Laurie

Thanks. It's a well-respected artist and the hair is lovely, but I have to admit to puzzlement.

There are several channels on the surface with specialized names that imply specific behavior.

They all do the same thing - they should be called Aux1 Aux2 Aux3. They all (for the most part) simply add their data to the rendered color. There are some minor exceptions, but not worth going into, until you understand the whole Poser Surface node.

(some of these have an XYZ _Value to go with them - that's just a multiplication factor)

Ambient_Color
Reflection_Color
Refraction_Color
Alternate_Diffuse
Alternate_Specular

I wrote about this in my earliest days of Poser shader work, in 2005.

I wrote:
*"The rest should just be called AUX1, AUX2, AUX3, etc."

Stewer answered:

Quote - Then everyone would be asking "what are these inputs for?". The names are for convenience: Alternate_Diffuse is a place where you can plug the diffuse nodes into, Alternate_Specular is where you can plug the specular nodes into. You don't have to - but following this convention will make it easier for other people to understand your shaders.

That made no sense to me then and still doesn't, but back then I was a lot more tentative. Now I'm certain I have to read a shader to know what it does. I do not trust that the refraction happens on the refract channel, for example.

If you look at my most sophisticated shaders, everything happens on Alternate_Diffuse.

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2415682

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2413678

Heh. Thanks, bagginsbill. That's pretty funny. But actually, understandable... easier for the next person to come along and figure out what you're doing where.

Quote - I've plugged the blinn into the regular specular already, but never the diffuse or alt diffuse. That sort of baffles me as well.

I couldn't help noticing this, LaurieA.

This is actually using a Blinn node (one specific type of specular light calculation) and sending the output into the internal Specular node (another type of specular light calculation). Thus multiplying together two different specular light effects.

You may have intended it that way, but I would expect the results are a bit difficult to predict or control.