The SpecularAmount of specular reflection, or the mirror-like reflection of light photons at the same angle. Used for transparent materials such as glass and water. material is used for transparent materials such as glass and water.
Figure 1: Specular materialUsed for transparent materials such as glass and water.
Figure 2: Specular material parameters
Reflection
Determines the glossy finish of the mesh. Reducing this value increases its ability to transmit light through the object volume. Reflectivity of specular materials is also affected by the Index Of Refraction. For example, with TransmissionA surface characteristic that determines if light may pass through a surface volume. set to black or a value of 0 and an Index Of Refraction set to 0, the material produces a mirror result.
Transmission
Controls the light passing through the surface of the material via refraction.
BRDF
This attribute provides three options for determining the overall bidirectional reflectance distribution function (BRDF). The Octane option produces a brushed metal effect. The Beckmann, GGX, and Ward options produce more polished chrome-like effects.
Roughness
Determines the sharpness of the reflection present on the surface. The reflection becomes more blurry as the Roughness value increases. The lowest value, 0.0, produces the sharpest and mirror-like reflection. It accepts a value, color, or image-based texture.
Anisotropy
Adjusts the amount of change in a surface's reflectance, depending on viewing direction.
Rotation
Controls the orientation of the Anisotropy effect.
Spread
Determines the tail spread for the specualr BSDF (Bidirectional ScatteringDefines how fast light gets scattered when traveling through the medium. Distribution Function) model of the specular layer.
Index
Controls the Fresnel effect of the reflection and refraction of light when it enters or exits the material. You can find standard values of Index Of Refraction (IOR) by searching the internet. Glass has a value of 1.53, and water has a value of 1.33.
Film Width
This controls the thickness of the optical, thin film on the material. This is useful in creating rainbow or oil slick effects.
Film Index
This controls the Index Of Refraction of the thin film.
Dispersion Coefficient B
The dispersion in OctaneRender® is based on Cauchy’s equation which has two terms: A, which is the index of refraction; and B, which is the dispersion coefficient. Increasing the value increases the amount of coloration and dispersion in the object and in caustics.
Medium
OctaneRender® for Houdini® has four types of mediums:
Opacity
Opacity sets the material's transparency. Although this parameter has the option to accept values and colors as inputs, a texture map is the most appropriate input parameter. You can use the Alpha Image map to extract alpha information from a connected Texture map.
Fake Shadows
Sets the architectural glass option for all meshes sharing that material. This setting is off by default. When enabled, the Specular material exhibits the characteristics of architectural glass with its transparent feature allowing light to illuminate enclosed spaces or frame an exterior view.
Refraction Alpha
This option makes refractions affect the alpha channel. This parameter has an effect if the Alpha Channel is enabled in the Kernel settings.
Thin wall
When enabled, the geometry becomes very thin, so the ray bounce exits the material immediately, rather than entering the medium.
Bump/Normal
Both the Bump and Normal parameters can load images to control the amount of bump mapping and normal mapping. Although both parameters have the option to accept values and colors as inputs, a Texture map is the most appropriate input parameter.
Adjusts the height of points on a surface based on an image value. Displacement differs from Bump or Normal mapping by providing true displacement of an objects surface. Displacement mapping is covered in more detail under the Texture Overview category.
Smooth
Refers to normal smoothing, which smooths the normals of all meshes sharing that material. When disabled, the materials are faceted and polygonal.
Smooth Shadow Terminator
If enabled, self-intersecting shadows for low polygon objects is smoothed according to the polygon's curvature.
Round Edges
This creates a shader effect at render time that rounds the sharp edges of objects without modifying and reloading the geometry. Higher values will round the edges more. This is very useful to bevel hard edges during render time, in particular when using low-polygon models.
Priority
Used to resolve the ambiguity in overlapping surfaces, the surface priority control allows artists to control the order of preference for surfaces. A higher number suggests a higher priority for the surface material, which means it is preferred over a lower priority surface material if a ray enters a higher priority surface and then intersects a lower priority surface while inside the higher priority surface medium.
Writes a mask to the specified custom AOV.
Custom AOV Channel
Determines whether the custom AOV is written to a specific color channel (R, G, or B) or to all the color channels.
Layer
Adds a Material Layer above the base material. See the Material Layers topic in this manual for more details.