Anisotropic Specular Highlights

Something of a new venture here, with the normal images supported by a video hosted by YouTube.

I start with the Anisotropic Specular node. In the sample images all other sources of light are turned off, and the anisotropic node plugged into the alt_specular channel.

u_Highlight_Size

In this series of images, the u_Highlight_Size ranges from 0.1 (left) to 1 (right). The video below ranges from 0 to 1. As you can see, on the Poser hi-res sphere the U mapping runs roughly from left to right around the sphere, and so as we increase the u_Highlight_Size scale, our highlights stretch out, becoming longer but slowly less bright.

Other settings: Specular Color= white, Specular_Value= 1, v_Highlight_Size=0.05, xdir_x= 0, xdir_y=1; xdir_z=0

This time both the U and V highlight sizes rise from 0 to 1. This produces a very different result. The highlights expand, then fade out, then appear around the edges of the object.