The specular pass didn't seem to be representative of what is expected when comparing when the lights have contribute to spec and diff turned on.

attached is three images, spec, diff and both turned on.

whats going on?

It's hard to tell from the images alone. Probably best if you could post the hip file, if possible. Shader, etc.

Cheers,

J.C.

Yeah, it all depends on the shader you are using.

AFAIK the only base VEX functions that support the light diffuse/specular contribution options are diffuse(), phong(), blinn(), or specular(). Most of the standard shaders and vops use these vex functions but there might be a few rogue ones who do something different.

Plus most of that missing illumination looks like its coming from reflections.

I'm using vops and plugging the color from a shiny metal VOP into the diff of the lighting model…should I be plugging in the color to the spec as well? I noticed a slight change when plugging color into both diff and spec of the lighting model.

Also, would there be any reflections with my reflmap being an empty string, as well as ray tracing turned off on the mantra node? ..because thats what I'm doing.

on the otherside of things, all I'm doing is changing the “contributes to” toggles for diffuse and specular on all the lights…is there anything else I'm missing?

I think Shiny Metal already does diffuse and spec calculations, so you may be trying to compute them twice, with subsequently odd results… Try just feeding Shiny Metal into the Cf directly and see what happens )

Cheers,

Peter B

All I can say is…. 8) fixed!
thanks!