Creating Textures: Reflection Map (1)

I already finished the bump map (in the second-last post), so it’s time to introduce another texture: the reflection (ref) map. It alters the basic reflectivity (gloss) assigned to the material. In addition, it also alters the material “roughness”. (In the typical CG materials the roughness and reflectivity are coupled in an inverse proportion). These two parameters are important, when you have to paint an oil streak or a soot streak. Both are black – the difference between them lies in their reflectivity.

The effects of the ref map are most visible inside these areas of the model that actually reflect the light:

Figure 73-1 The effect of the reflectivity map

Figure 73‑1 shows two renders of the same model: the upper one was created without any reflectivity map, the lower one uses a basic ref map. (I created this texture around the technical details of the aircraft skin).

Seamless Joining of Two Objects

This post is a small digression about a modeling technique that you may find useful.

There is a detail on the bottom surfaces of the SBD center wing: an opening, made partially in the cover of the fuselage belly (Figure 72‑1):

Figure 72-1 The detail that I have to recreate

The difficult part of this detail is its flange, stamped in the fuselage cover. I just have two photos of this element, both of average resolution. On both of them you can see a typical circular recession, made around the opening in the belly cover. In fact, such a feature is quite common in the sheet metal design (you can see plenty of such stamped flanges in various places inside your car). This is a minor detail, too small for any serious modeling, but too large for recreating it with the textures.

Mapping Asymmetric Details of Aircraft Skin

Although the technical details of aircraft skin are symmetric in general, there are always exceptions. For example, look at the bottom surfaces of the SBD (Figure 71‑1 shows them on my model):

Figure 71-1 Asymmetric details on the bottom surfaces of the center wing and the fuselage

As you can see, there are several details that are not symmetric. (In addition, let’s do not forget about the asymmetric opening under bottom covers of the fuselage, visible on this picture – see Figure 70‑9 in my previous post).

So far I mapped only the symmetric half of the wing on the UVTech texture layout. It occupies a significant portion of the space. Such a size allowed me to draw all the technical details in higher resolution. The plan was that both wings will be mapped in the same points of the UV space, because most of their structure is symmetric. For the few asymmetric details, I was going to prepare additional areas, intended for the UV mesh faces that contain these elements.