Minimal Roughness

The Minimal Roughness tool is a valuable feature used to enhance lighting effects, particularly for fill lighting, adjusting specular highlights, and quickly diffusing materials within a specific area.

Usage Guidelines:

• Keep the intensity low and adjust the Min Rough Value for optimal results, especially with point and spot lights.

• Useful when micro lighting adjustments are unnecessary or when specular highlights are too bright on objects.

• Adjusting minimal roughness can create a diffused look for distant lighting, enhancing vistas.

• Ideal for materials with dark albedo (Color), adding vibrancy without altering the material properties significantly.

Caution: While the Minimal Roughness tool is powerful, it can impact materials significantly. Exercise caution when using higher values, especially on metallic materials, as it can flatten the texture, resulting in the loss of micro details.

Examples:

Observations:

Higher values of minimal roughness (approaching 1) can result in a flat appearance in materials, especially noticeable on metallic surfaces. To preserve material details, it is advisable to use low values or none at all.

Characters, particularly those with metallic armors, are affected by minimal roughness adjustments. The tool can significantly alter their appearance, as showcased in the images. Bright key lights exacerbate these effects, but reducing the values mitigates the extreme changes.

Contributors Tyler | Lighting Artist Captain Punch