Question-- Alpha Color Difference and Repaints

[OleBoy]

I'm in hopes that the hard hitters will respond.

I've been experimenting with the alpha channel. Where the final outcome is a noticeable difference, but progressively.
.....What I want to do is break up the shine in stages.


Looking at the fuselage only, my shading is as follows:

COLOR
Gray (middle), G-LITZ (reg), Pitts label, Wheels = 255,255,255
All Pink = 200,200,200
All Purple = ..175,175,175
Black = ....125,125,125

http://img801.imageshack.us/img801/5342/alphadifferences.th.png (http://img801.imageshack.us/i/alphadifferences.png/)

I'm in hopes someone can give me good solid numbers that will show the type of look.

And I hope that makes some sense :mixedsmi:

[butchm]

Alpha controls shine, your model looks too shiny to the point that its unrealistic. IMHO

Alpha = shine
Defuse = color
Normal = height
Specular = refection

[OleBoy]

Alpha controls shine, your model looks too shiny to the point that its unrealistic.

No argument there. That's the problem I am referring to. I can make all the areas more white to bring down the shine, but it won't address what I want to see. I want to see some progressive depth to the colors and stripes, but I don't know how to do this.
....Repaints and FSX are a completely new venture for me. There are things I need to learn to correct the problems going based on what you mention below.

Alpha = shine
Defuse = color
Normal = height
Specular = refection

Right now, I am baffled. It's time for coffee and a lot of reading I guess.

[Tako_Kichi]

I'm having a hard time trying to figure out in my own head just what you are after OleBoy. Not that you haven't explained it well enough it's just that my brain isn't firing on all cylinders yet today.

If you are trying to get more shine on the bare metal than the painted areas then that is down to the shades of grey used in the diffuse map alpha channel. The more grey the more shine.

If you are trying to get a change in the colour of the reflected light then that is the main channel of the spec map. The colours here are usually lighter than the ones in the diffuse map unless you are going for a special effect (like the colour changing paint on some cars these days) where you would completely change the colour of the reflected light.

If I remember correctly the alpha channel on the spec map controls how big the reflection is from pinpoint to flood.

[mjahn]

Two cents ...

What makes this somewhat intractable is that both shine and reflectivity are also controlled via material settings within the mdl, over which as a repainter you have no control.

Supposing the mdl has been done in a standard way then you have two RGB's and two Alphas to deal with, making up the Diffuse and the Specular texture sheets. So far you seem to be talking about one texture sheet only.

Diffuse RGB has the basic colors of the model. Diffuse Alpha sets the strength of reflection using the standard environment map (not necessarily the best choice, chrome might be better, but you can't do anything about it), generally the darker the more reflection, with white = no reflection.

The specular RGB defines the specular color (color of shine), and the specular Alpha defines the strength of the shine, generally the darker the stronger. Begin by using a darkened copy of the Diffuse RGB, and test the effect of various alpha shades by using broad paralell stripes of grey, say 10,10,10, 20,20,20, ..., 200,200,200. Check the results in sim and fine-tune, generally until hell freezes over or MS Flight comes along.

This is my take at any rate; it seems quite different from what others have said so far, and seeing I am a novice at this may be quite wrong.