Menu : TEXTURE

Command: Area:Create New

Shortcut : None

This command defines a new texture area on the target surface, or element of surfaces. Any number of texture areas may be defined for each surface. There are two stages to defining a texture. First define the parameters and then define the position.

TEXTURE PARAMETERS

The command first asks you what texturing method you wish to apply, then some texturing details depending on the style. The style alternatives are:

  • Color image - A picture is mapped on the texture area. For example, a decal of a company logo on a product.
  • Solid texture - A procedural 3D solid texture is applied on the texture area. For example, wood grain passing through an object. It does not require a texture image to be specified, only the materials and scale coefficients for the texture. Procedural textures are really mathematical formulae that take the X, Y and Z coordinates of a point in space and calculates a color. Different formulae give the appearance of different materials.
  • Bounding surface – Use this option if you wish to create a texture that spreads over several surfaces or if a surface is difficult to texture using texture areas. The texture is first defined on an invisible bounding surface, from which it will be projected onto the actual surfaces.

Depending on which of the above options you have chosen you will be asked different parameters. These are explained now.

Material, Image and Bump Mapping

These texturing choices first show a list of texture files. These textures are found either in the current model directory, or in the texture library DA_textures. You may select any one of these files for texturing. For bump mapping, though, you may first need to convert the image to a gray scale (see command FILESÞFile:Convert).

If you do not find the desired texture file in the list, you may have the wrong model directory selected, the image may be named inconsistently, or it may be in a wrong format. The file must be saved as a .pic or .pic.Z or .rgb or .rgb.Z or .tif or .tif.Z. The File Window command FILESÞFile:Convert converts most other commonly used file formats to these formats.

Next, the system asks for one or more of the following details to be specified:

  • Number of replications - This allows the texture to be repeated a number of times in the texture area's horizontal and/or vertical directions. For instance, to define wallpaper with a regular flower pattern, draw one flower and replicate the image on the wall a number of times. This saves the trouble of making a large and memory intensive picture with many flowers on it.
  • Blurring - Smoothes the borders between individual pixels in the texture image making it look more natural and less computer generated. This technique is sometimes called anti-aliasing on other computer systems.
  • Adaptive mapping – It is common for textures that have been applied to surface to become distorted due to the underlying definition of the surface. Adaptive texturing minimizes this distortion of the texture. Adaptive mapping should nearly always be used, unless intentional distortion is required for a special effect.
  • Transparent background - Controls the background color of the texture. If transparent background is chosen, the background will be rendered in the same color as the actual surface. Otherwise, the texture will be displayed on the surface with its original background color.
  • Bump depth - This parameter determines how dramatic the bump effect will be when applying bump mapping. Higher values cause deeper bumps.

Solid textures

The following solid textures are available:

Bounding surfaces

This option should be chosen if you wish to create a texture that runs over several surfaces or if a surface is difficult to texture using texture areas.

Bounding surface texturing is normally created using the special TEXTUREÞBounding:.. commands. This command may be used if you later wish to check or change the parameters.

The normal texture area parameters (whether the texture is a color image or a bump map, etc.) are defined on the bounding surface, while the actual surface(s) only hold the information on the projection direction. See commands TEXTUREÞBounding:Object and Assign for the parameter explanations.

TEXTURE POSITION

If the texture area is defined on just one surface (not an element), the system asks for its placement on the surface using one of the following options:

  • Center point - The texture area is positioned by pointing at the center of the desired location and clicking with the left mouse button. Next, show the placement of the texture’s upper right corner with the left mouse button.
  • Around - The texture area is positioned over the entire cross-wise section of the surface. The texture borders in the lengthwise surface direction are shown by pointing at the bottom and top of the texture area on the surface with the left mouse button. This is useful for creating bands of patterns around an object.
  • Numeric - The texture area is positioned numerically. The parameters requested are the minimum and maximum values of the texture area in each direction of the parameter plane.

To later change the texture area properties or placement, use the commands TEXTUREÞArea:Parameters, Placement, and Direction. To remove a texture area, you must select the texture area in the lowest pane of the Object Manager window and issue the command OBJECTÞDelete.