Realistic Wood in TS1/TS-SE

Shane Davison, daviso@cs.uregina.ca

• if you haven't already done so, get pat-txtr.zip from ftp.netnet.net
• use the following object attributes:
• material color: n/a
• AutoFacet & Phong
• texture map with the following settings:
• Name: mywood.bmp
• U & V repts ~ 5 each (depends on object size)
• shader attributes with the following settings:
• Ambient: 0.32
• Shine : 0.49
• Rough : 0.87
• Opacity: 1
• Refract: 1
• then apply it to your object
• this should work on most object types with most lighting setups (I think)

[Ed. Note: Obviously this technique works equally well on TS2. However, TS2 give you the addition option of using the procedural wood material.]

Planet textures

Peter Plantec, thenar@cinenet.net

I use Corel Photopaint to cut out hundreds of pieces of bitmaps and fractal images. I then do a trial processing on them...ie embossing, pixilate, Posterize etc. I then save the interesting onez for bitmaps in tga. I find you can make great planet surfaces by taking a rough (like a stone wall for example) bitmap and embossing it. Then use it as a texture map and wrap it around a sphere.

Planet atmospheres

Peter Plantec, thenar@cinenet.net

If you have the "Earth" from Avalon, it has no atmosphere. You can give it atmosphere by taking a swirly texture, highlighting the swirl...fiddle with the interactive controls and make it transparent. Use it as a reflection map on a sphere just a tad bigger than the earth. It looks better than the onez they use on commercials on tv.

Realistic Metal

Peter Plantec, thenar@cinenet.net

Try this experiment to make a nice quality gold. Use the text tool to write your name in bould letters. extrude them and access the paint roller tool. Now, right click on the environment map and put in a photograph of something like an indoor or outdoor scene. Good, now click on the upper right corner (yellow) of the color cube. Make sure you turn off the bump map and textrue map tools (above the environment map). now paint this on the letters. You may need to rotate them to catch the light just right. use the default ligtts to start with.

Now it's time to tweek: Play with the shinniness, ambient glow and roughness sliders until the example ball looks good to you, then paint it on the letters. You should get a very believable looking gold metalic. Oh, yes, don'tforget to depress the metalic shading button to the left of the environment map button.

Now for silver, reduce the roughness slider to very smooth and click on white in the color cube. next, slide the shinniness slider to about half way...try it and adjust.

For aluminum, simply slide the roughness slider up a bit until it looks like aluminum. Brass is like gold, only darker and more orange.

For other textures, try using the bump map. right click on it to get the file box. load in an interesting texture. Next, right click on the texture map tool and load an interesting bitmapped texture. now push both buttons and see what you get on theball.

An interesting thing to do is select the same bitmap for both the bitmap and the bumpmap. Notice that you can addjust the depth of the bumps. Some times for gold I take a fine bump map, reduce the depth and apply it to give that textured gold look.

Bjorn-Kare Nilssen, bjoernk@oslonett.no

Just a little tip : The WASTELAND environment map in the environment directory installed by trueSpace works very well in most cases.

To make it "behave like gold" you'll have to set rendering mode to raytracing, as this is the only way to get reflections of the other objects in the scene. It's actually not the "only way" in tS, because you can make environmental maps based on your actual scene, and then use that one as a reflection map on your object. It will not give you more than one reflection though. When raytracing objects inside a mirrored box, you will get an unlimited number of objects mirrored as the reflections bounce from mirror to mirror. There's a limit on the number of interreflections in tS, but I don't know the number. [Ed. Note: the version 2.01A update includes an enhancement to let you set the maximum number of reflections....]

Bjorn-Kare Nilssen, bjoernk@oslonett.no

Here are Bjorn's settings for acheiving the great metal materials in his BKNHPTOY.JPG available on ftp.netnet.net.

For the wheels and axis' I used metal shader and environment mapping with an ordinary picture of a desert scene, quite grayish.

Here's all the settings :

         Wheels/Axis    Engine          Blue Tyres      Horse/rods
ambient: 0.07           s               0.45            0.45
shine  : 0.87           a               0.87            0.87
rough  : 0.26           m               0.06            0.06
Opacity: 1              e               1               0.2
Refract: 1              <-              1               1.46
Shader : Metal                          Metal           Metal
Env.Map: Desert Scene                   Desert Scene    same as the others

There's also 2 spotlights(with ray shadows) and one local light(no shadows) in the scene.

Color Satur. Intens. Shadows Loc
Spot 1: Blue 235 .335 .83 Ray right back
Spot 2: Yellow 44 .207 1.33 Ray in right front
Local : Blue 232 .462 .69 No Behind vehicle

Object Painting

Bruce G. Vryenhoek, bvryen@telerama.lm.com

I have been looking for a utility that allows you to "unwrap" a 3D wireframe model onto a 2D plane and then paint directly onto the surface of the object, creating a kind of customized image map for that object. I haven't run across anything like that, but I tried something that (somewhat) approximates what I was looking for.

After setting up a wireframe model in TS, I exported the object in DXF format. From there, I was able to read the DXF file into Paint Shop Pro (I don't have DXF import capability on Photoshop. Is there a plug-in for this?) and convert it to a Targa format. The resulting image is a top side view of the object in wireframe form. I like Photoshop better than PSP, so I loaded the Targa image of the wireframe into Photoshop and used the "magic wand" tool to create a selection bounded by the edges of the wireframe (The background color was all white, so this was an easy manipulation.). All I had to do from there was to paint whatever I wanted on to the "surface" of the object image. The current selection is the only part of the image that is affected by the painting operation, so the outline of the object is preserved. When I was done painting, I saved the image as a Targa file, converted it to a TXR file in TS (to remove the white background), and mapped it on to the original object. Perfect fit. I did have to play around with the UV mapping (which supercedes the preferred default UV mapping) to align it properly, but generally it worked out pretty well.

I want to use this to create random "dirt" and "damage" on the surfaces of various mechanical objects, as well as to custom paint specific parts of objects a little more intuitively. The drawbacks here are memory consumption and UV map dependency. The map ends up being quite large, but at least is non-repeating, and you are pretty much confined to mapping the texture through the top of the object to maintain the effect.

Glass

Shane Davison, daviso@cs.uregina.ca

Attribute settings for creating a glass object in trueSpace:

• Smooth
• Metal shaded
• Ambient glow: between 0.75 and 1.0 (ie. high)
• Shininess: 1.0 (top)
• Roughness: 1.0 (top)
• Transparency: 0 (top)

Experiment with the color and index of refraction settings to get the desired look (but keep the Index of Refraction fairly low).

Enhancing Shadows with the Paint Vertices Tool

Mark E. Marshall, marshall@ids.net

When you have the lighting/shadow scheme just perfect, yet one object isn't giving you the good contrast of the rest of your scene (assuming a high contrast scene). Instead of adding more light or fiddling with the placement, go ahead and use the paint face tool to subtly darken and / or lighten angles and sides. It is much faster than bulb tweaking.

"Cool" Materials

Shane Davison, daviso@cs.uregina.ca

Some settings for a colorful material (cool!):

• Color: 210,210,255 (slightly blue)
• Smooth
• Metal shaded
• Bump map: orange (default)
• Environment map: rainbow (default)
• Shader attributes (ambient, shine, etc): all set to top!

That's it - quick and easy. Try this on a sphere first and then more complicated objects. Also, make sure you enable raytracing for the Index of Refraction to work properly (this will greatly increase rendering times, of course, but it's still fun :).

Cloudy Gas (TS2 only)

Peter Plantec, thenar@cinenet.net

You can make a space-gas type display similar to those in on Babalon 5/Deep Space 9, etc. Using the marble procedural, make the vein red or what ever color you want the space gas to be. Make the stone black and transparent. Set the shapness to a low value (experiment). A good effect can be created by applying this material to a plane, with a space/stars background image. Play with the xyz parameters to get the effect you want. Animation is possible, but tricky.

Copying a Material Rectangle

PROBLEM: I have a UFO model and I want to place 6 same-sized rectangular portholes around the circumference of the upper hull. Making one material rectangle and applying a texture to it is the simplest way I can see to achieve it.

Bjorn-Kare Nilssen, bjoernk@oslonett.no

When using material rectangles it's easy to loose track of their locations and sizes. I always try to make as few as possible, and I have given up on trying to align them. TS already has built-in "alignment" in the material repetitions, so that's what I'd use if I need repetitive materials. My (detailed) solution to the material rectangle portholes is as follows:

Make a dark rectangle inside a lighter one, with as much detail as you want inside the porthole. Make it transparent by using the Image Utilities in tS, with the left upper corner, or white as the transparent color. Set U repeats at 6, and V at 1 in the materials editor. You could use the same image for both image map and bump map, for added realism. Make one material rectangle that covers the entire upper hull. Now you can make fine adjustments, maybe in particular with the U offset. Or you can easily make it 12 portholes, or 2 rows with 9 portholes in each. If you want added detail in some of the portholes; so they don't look exactly similar, you can just put another MR (Material Rectangle) on top of the first one.

Compact Disc Rainbow Texture

(Requires PhotoShop or equivalent and Kai's Power Tools)

Terry Cotant, 70313.1103@compuserve.com

1. Go into Photo Shop and bring up Kai's Power Tools.
2. Go into Texture Explorer and play around until you get a cool "rainbow" colored texture. Try different ones -- consecutive circles, wavy textures, etc. Certain animations require different styles of textures.
3. In trueSpace, go into Image Utilities, and select your new texture (.bmp) that you created in steps 1-2.
4. Column should be set to left (try others, though) and click 1D Environment map. This creates a 1D environment map. To use it, select your object, then right click on the paint tool.
5. Set your textures to be like this: (right click the shader attributes for numerical entry)
• Ambient: .25
• Shine: 1
• Rough: 1
• Opacity: 1
• Refract: 1

Then left click the "Use Environment Map" button. Now right click on it, and point it to your new .t1d.

6. Paint your object. The effect is best when moving/rotating your object. You will need to play with how tight to make the rings (step 2).
7. For a really wierd (and pretty realistic) option, try this:
• Do the above steps to get your .t1d
• Make sure that you've got your environment map turned on as in step 6 above, but change your shader attributes to be (or something similar to):
• Ambient: .25
• Shine: .65
• Rough: 1
• Opacity: 1
• Refract: 1
• Right click on your texture map button and select your original .bmp from step 2, then left click to make it active
• Paint the object and do an animation of that. Wow, very cool. Try varying amounts of "Shine" for different effects.

Texture for Clear Liquid Objects

Shane Davison, daviso@cs.uregina.ca

Attributes for its material:

• Color: 255,255,255
• Smooth
• Shading: Phong
• Amb, Shine, Rough: all the way down
• Opacity: all the way up
• Refract: 1.02 (or a little higher)

And make sure to enable raytracing. This can produce cool effects if the object is moving in front of other (colorfull) objects (it will take a while to trace though).

Speaking of liquid (or gels), one of the amazing things about TS is its ability to automatically add and remove polygons to ensure object smoothness during an animation in which the object is deformed (by a lattice, etc).

Texturing Object Faces Using an Independent UV Mapping

Shane Davison, daviso@cs.uregina.ca

Sometimes when texturing an object, it is desirable to use a different UV mapping for a particular face than for the rest of the object. For example, you may want to paint the ends of the cylinder with a planar mapping and the rest of the cylinder using the standard cylindrical mapping. Here's a way to do that:

Select your cylinder and click on 'Point Edit: Faces'. Then click on the top (rim) of the cylinder (the top circle should be selected [green]). From the 'point navigation' panel, select 'separate selected part of object'. Now you'll have two objects. Pick the circle polygon, use planar mapping on it and paint it with the appropriate material. Finally, glue it to your original cylinder so that you can move them together.

Montoring Materials Changes While Keyframing

Shane Davison, daviso@cs.uregina.ca

Select an object and use the Material Inspection' tool on it. From then on, and as long as you don't select a different tool, the material previewer will automatically update to show the settings at each keyframe.

BumpMaps Not Rendering

Shane Davison, daviso@cs.uregina.ca

Bump maps (and texture maps) need a UV proj. before they'll show up. So, try to re-apply the UV projection and then re-paint (this should work on the main object but you may have to do each piece manually).

Shimmering Reflection On Flat Surface

Nigel, claytob@globalone.net

To get a nice reflection effect similar to the shimmering reflection of a layer of liquid on a flat surface (like a parking lot following a rain for example): Apply a very small amplitude bump map to your reflective floor or ground object and use a high number of reps (the orange.tab with truespace works great when you up the mapping repetitions and lower the bump altitude). When rendered (raytracing enabled), the result will be a slightly distorted reflection that adds a bit of depth to the image/animation.

Sean Cunningham, Sean@msicri.com

I was also able to produce a really good water effect using the above tip in combination with another:

If you use deform tool to produce a number of parallel lines in a flat surface, then move each line up, and then down in subsequent frames, it makes a great wave-like effect.