Flagstone

| Texture | Flagstone | Advanced | Render Tree Usage

Shader Type: Texture

Output: Color (RGB) value

Creates a random 3D texture that resembles abstract stained glass or a flagstone walkway. The flagstones are colored using the define colors, but the mortar between the stones is fixed at black.

 

If the Flagstone texture is applied using a planar projection, there will be little variation in the W (Z axis). This will make the flagstone texture appear two-dimensional. To obtain a better result, use a Spatial texture projection to make the texture vary over the object’s surface. Then you could adjust the number of repeats using the UV Remap parameter.

Name

The shader’s name. Enter any name you like, or leave the default.

Texture

Texture Space

Defines the texture space the texture will be applied to. The projection can be defined per object or to all objects in the selection.

Object Selection: When multiple objects are selected, defines whether changes are applied to all objects or a specific one. This control updates automatically as you select objects in the scene, as long as the property editor is not locked.

Property Selection: Lets you choose a Texture Support. If no texture support has been defined, you can create one by clicking New. If a texture projection is already defined, you can edit it by clicking Edit.

Edit: Opens the Texture Support property page for the defined texture projection.

New: Defines the new texture projection to be created. You can choose from the following:

UV: Projects the texture along the U and V.

Planar XY: Projects the texture on X and Y coordinates only.

Planar XZ: Projects the texture on X and Z coordinates only.

Planar YZ: Projects the texture on Y and Z coordinates only.

Cylindrical: Projects the texture as though it is a cylinder wrapped around an object.

Spherical: Surrounds the object with a spherical mapping across the whole surface with some distortion.

Spatial: The texture is centered on the scene’s origin.

Cubic: Applies the texture onto the object by first assigning the object’s polygons to faces of a cube, and then projecting the texture onto each face by default. The layout of a cubic projection can be completely customized using the options in the Texture Support property editor.

Camera Projection: The texture is mapped relative to the camera’s center. In this coordinate system, the camera is the center of the “world,” with an up vector, looking toward the negative Z axis. The result resembles an image projected from a camera. The texture will move with the camera and will be affected by any scaling, rotation, and translation.

Unique Uvs (Polymesh): Applies a texture to polygon objects by assigning each polygon’s UV coordinates to its own distinct piece of the texture so that no two polygons’ coordinates overlap each other.

Advanced: Opens the Create Texture Support property page from which you can explicitly define a texture projection.

Bump Mapping

Enable

Switches bump mapping on or off.

Bump Map Factor

Defines how “bumpy” the bump map will be. A negative value will invert the bump inward and a positive bump map factor will bump outward.

Use Alpha

Will use the texture’s alpha channel to achieve a bump map.

Flagstone

Colors

Color 1

Defines the first color of the flagstone pattern.

Color 2

Defines the second color of the flagstone pattern.

Alpha

Copy Alpha to RGB

Multiplies the RGB channels with the alpha channel by the factor defined in the Alpha Strength parameter.

Alpha Strength

Determines the factor by which the Alpha is multiplied with the RGB channels.

Mortar Width

Defines the thickness of the mortar between the flagstones (or lead between pieces of stained glass).

Advanced

Bump Mapping

Step

Controls the U, V, and Z steps of a bump map. Use this parameter to “smooth” bumps or make them more jagged.

Alternate

U, V, Z

Specifies whether every other copy of the repetition should be reversed so that the successive copies of the texture are alternated.

Repeats

Texture Repeats

Contains the repetition factor in X,Y, and Z. A value of 2, for example, shrinks the texture so that it fits twice in a [0..1] interval.

UV Remap

Minimum, Maximum

Determines the remapping of the texture image. For a 2D image, only X and Y are used.

Render Tree Usage

Color parameters can be connected to other textures or image processing shaders. For example, you can connect a different texture to Color 1 and Color 2 to create a mosaic of image clips. A texture’s scalar parameters can be altered to create interesting effects by applying Texture Generator shaders to them.

A texture shader has limitless capabilities in a render tree. It can texture an object, be used as a camera or light projection, define bump or displacement maps, or be blended with any number of other textures to create any effect.



Autodesk Softimage v.7.5