Glossiness Mapping

Material Editor > Standard material > Maps rollout > Glossiness button

An object with glossiness mapping. The sea appears more reflective than the land.

You can select a bitmap file or procedural map that affects where specular highlights appear. A map assigned to glossiness determines which areas of the whole surface are more glossy and which areas are less glossy, depending on the intensity of colors in the map. Black pixels in the map produce full glossiness. White pixels remove glossiness completely, and intermediate values reduce the size of the highlight.

Mapping the glossiness component is different from mapping specular color. Mapping glossiness alters the location of highlights, while specular mapping alters the color of highlights.

Glossiness mapping usually works best when you assign the same map to both Glossiness and Specular Level. (In the Maps rollout, you can do this by dragging from one map button to the other.)

(Glossiness was known as Shininess prior to 3ds Max 3.)

Procedure

To map the glossiness value:

Click the Map button for the Glossiness value.

The Material/Map Browser is displayed.
Choose from the list of map types, and then click OK.

The Material Editor is now at the map level, and displays controls for the map parameters.
Use the map controls to set up the map.