Connecting and generating Flow Map Textures for Specular Breakup

[Anonymous]

Yes hello, I'm doing some research on creating textures that break specular highlights within geometry

This is what I know at the moment: (I could be wrong)

("Flow maps" or "Direction maps" or "Position maps") are attached to the RGB channels

Red = X Green = Y and Blue = Z

These channels control vector direction information

Painting these maps will redirect the way light interacts with your object 

They are used for hair, water and other turbulent forces

 here is a viewing of a standard flow map

And the final outcome.

My question is to you how do you go about connecting this file into Arnold using aiStandardSurface nodes?

As well as any tips in generating this type of information within maya's viewport?

-Thanks

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

Update:

so with more research for aiStandardSurface I believe under the specular tab what my previous comment was directed towards is an outdated formula for a different material node?

Instead of creating flow maps in RGB the connection attributes in question are:

Anisotropy and Rotation

which i believe are both binary maps.

Here are some definitions provided by Autodesk:

Anisotropy =  reflects and transmits light with a directional bias and causes materials to appear rougher or glossier in certain directions. The default value for anisotropy is 0, which means 'isotropic.' As you move the control towards 1.0, the surface is made more anisotropic in the U axis.

Rotation = changes the orientation of the anisotropic reflectance in UV space. At 0.0, there is no rotation, while at 1.0 the effect is rotated by 180 degrees. For a surface with brushed metal, this controls the angle at which the material was brushed. For metallic surfaces, the anisotropic highlight should stretch out in a direction perpendicular to the brushing direction.