Specular tints release note (#2083)

Co-authored-by: Robert Swain <[email protected]>

Author: alice-i-cecile

content/news/2025-XX-XX-bevy-0.16/specular-tint-sphere.png

@@ -1,4 +1,20 @@
 <!-- Add support for specular tints and maps per the `KHR_materials_specular` glTF extension. -->
 <!-- https://github.com/bevyengine/bevy/pull/14069 -->
 
-<!-- TODO -->
+If you have an eye for light (or training in visual arts), you'll notice that shiny curved surfaces get extra-bright spots of light.
+That's a specular highlight!
+In Bevy 0.16, we've implemented a standard physically-based rendering (PBR) feature of specular highlights: the ability to tint their color.
+
+![A shiny floating sphere with an iridescent multicolored sheen. It reminds you of a Christmas tree ornament. You can see a reflection of a city scene in it.](specular-tint-sphere.png)
+
+This can be done uniformly across the material, by simply setting the `specular_tint` field on the [`StandardMaterial`] for your object.
+
+Like many other material properties (color, normals, emissiveness, roughness etc), this can be varied over the material via the use of a texture map,
+which describes how this property varies via a 2-dimensional UV-space image.
+
+Maps are relatively expensive: you need an entire 2D image, rather than a single float or color, and GPUs have limits on the number of textures you can use per material, unless they support bindless textures.
+As a result, specular maps are off by default, and gated behind the `pbr_specular_textures` Cargo feature.
+
+To support this work, we now support the KHR_materials_specular glTF extension, allowing artists to set these properties in 3D modelling tools like Blender, then import them into Bevy.
+
+[`StandardMaterial`]: https://dev-docs.bevyengine.org/bevy/pbr/struct.StandardMaterial.html

release-content/0.16/release-notes/14069_Add_support_for_specular_tints_and_maps_per_the_KHR_materi.md

@@ -114,7 +114,7 @@ prs = [17315]
 file_name = "17315_Implement_basic_clustered_decal_projectors.md"
 
 [[release_notes]]
-title = "Add support for specular tints and maps per the `KHR_materials_specular` glTF extension."
+title = "Specular tints and maps"
 authors = ["@pcwalton"]
 contributors = []
 prs = [14069]