How to get "oily" shinniness reflection?

[Thecla]

Can anyone fill me in on how to create the "oily" shinniness reflection which shows a gradient of color, apparently based on angle of viewing or light striking the surface? I can't really see if this changes based on angle but the effect is convincing all the same. I tried putting a rainbow-ish texture in the shinniness texture box and fiddling with levels, but no joy.

[Wulfie Reanimator]

9 minutes ago, Thecla said:

I tried putting a rainbow-ish texture in the shinniness texture box and fiddling with levels, but no joy.

That's basically all there is to it, though the dress clearly has a bit more intention on the texture it uses for shine. Black color does not shine, everything else will show up when the light hits it just right. Which dress is this?

[Thecla]

10 minutes ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

That's basically all there is to it, though the dress clearly has a bit more intention on the texture it uses for shine. Black color does not shine, everything else will show up when the light hits it just right. Which dress is this?

It's the Axolotl - Vanter Dress. I get that the shinniness texture is usually grey scale. But this dress, and some others that I have seen...the COLOR of the reflection changes, or is at least a gradient of color and not just value. SL only gives you a color picker if you want a reflected color. How do you get a gradient of color? Is this some alpha channel thing?

[Tazzie Tuque]

It is in the specular layer of the texture.(you can have the whole thing in rainbow or just the areas you want to highlight)  Use a rainbow specular layer instead of the usual gray tone layer.  And boost the level up to where you want it.  The higher the level the more shine you get.  Also play with the environment slider boosting that can make a difference as well.  

[Wulfie Reanimator]

1 hour ago, Thecla said:

It's the Axolotl - Vanter Dress. I get that the shinniness texture is usually grey scale. But this dress, and some others that I have seen...the COLOR of the reflection changes, or is at least a gradient of color and not just value. SL only gives you a color picker if you want a reflected color. How do you get a gradient of color? Is this some alpha channel thing?

In most cases people will use just a blank-white texture or a greyscale image (like for sweat/water droplets) just like you said, but nothing prevents you from using a colored texture like you tried with the rainbow texture. Since the dress is using a colorful texture for its shine, the colors are revealed when light shines on the dress.

As a crude example, here's a texture with two colors:

This is how it shines in-world, the only difference with the dress is that the dress' shine is made to work with all those seams and creases in the proper texture, instead of just being a flat "throw color everywhere" texture. It's a really nice and relatively easy effect to add to almost any model while you're baking textures in Blender.

 

Edited July 28, 2023 by Wulfie Reanimator

[Thecla]

Thanks Wulfie. I guess I need to play with it a little more actively as my example, which was just a smooth sphere, did not show any of the variation in the colored specular texture I used. That texture may not have been dark enough either. Thanks a bunch!

[Conifer Dada]

It could just be that there are coloured lights that are reflecting off the dress. I saw that effect on someone the other day. The coloured disco lights were moving and the wearer was dancing, causing the coloured reflections to flicker across the dress.

Edited August 21, 2023 by Conifer Dada

[Zalificent Corvinus]

On 7/28/2023 at 6:12 PM, Thecla said:

It's the Axolotl - Vanter Dress. I get that the shinniness texture is usually grey scale. But this dress, and some others that I have seen...the COLOR of the reflection changes, or is at least a gradient of color and not just value. SL only gives you a color picker if you want a reflected color. How do you get a gradient of color? Is this some alpha channel thing?

Totally wrong.

The "shinines texture" is in FACT a "specular Colour" map, they are usually greyscale because a)people don't read the instructions for SL Materials, and b) because "everyone else does it that way".

All that is happening is somebody used a multi coloured specular colour map, that's all. Both the specular map and the specular tint can colourise the reflections.

Make sure the specular map is not too dark, it should be LIGHTER than the colour of the dress/whatever. make sure the Env value isn't too high, as the fake reflections can drown out or darken the specular highlights, and make sure the gloss value isn't too high or too low, do NOT set it to 51 (default), do NOT set it to 255, you want a value somewhere between , oh 75, and 150 maybe, depending on if the surface is supposed to be leather, or rubber or vinyl or plastic.

 

5 hours ago, Conifer Dada said:

It could just be that there are coloured lights that are reflecting off the dress. I saw that effect on someone the other day. The coloured disco lights were moving and the wearer was dancing, causing the coloured reflections to flicker across the dress.

No, this isn't "coloured lights", it's a fairly common finish on clothes from some stores, often referred to as "holo-colours" by some merchants.

[Danielle Atheria]

Oops misread the question 

Edited September 16, 2023 by Danielle Atheria