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Nail textures


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Hard to tell what kind of shine that is, since I usually don't wear nails. :matte-motes-tongue: A few screenshots might help to get an idea.

Perhaps just add a blank specular texture in the Specular slot, and play with the glossiness value there. In the Build floaters Texture tab that is. (Requires Advanced Lighting model to be enabled.)

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The most realistic effect will be with specular maps indeed, because it's dynamic, and not just a baked in effect. I would add a little bit of Environment reflections as well perhaps. If you are after a baked shine effect, that is usually done with setting up some lights in a 3d modeling program, and baking the refelctions into a texture.

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Much of the difficulty with shiny things under Advanced Lighting in SL comes from the limitations of the two types of specular reflection. There is pure specular reflection which is added to the diffuse texture, but only reflects the sun, moon and local lights. Then there is the environmental reflection which attempts to mimic reflection of indirect light, but comes only from the sky (and a bit from the sun). Instead of being added to the diffuse (texture + color) reflection, the environmental reflection replaces it. So as you increase the environmental reflection, you lose the texture and/or color that was there without it.

You can investigate the effects of these settings with a set of objects like those in this picture. These have a blank white texture and a fully saturated pure red color for the diffuse reflection. They also all have a blank white texture added for the shininess (click the shininess radio button and select Blank texture). The settings for Glossiness (left to right) and Environment (front to back) are 0, 50, 100, 150, 200 (100% would be 255). They are shown at one angle under default lighting at midnight, midday and 6pm (top to bottom). Of course, this is only a tiny set of possible lighting conditions. If you want to choose the best combination for you use, then you will need to make such a set of objects and look at them in all the lighting conditions you expect them to be used in.



If you want highlights without advanced lighting, then you will have to use baked (or painted) highlights. These will be unresponsive to lighting conditions, which may be incongruous, and will conflict with highlights from Advanced lighting if it is turned on. It is possible to reach a compromise that is acceptable in either conditions, but that is very much a matter to be determined by personal choice.

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