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Questions about materials
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These pages are a copy of the official truespace forums prior to their removal somewhere around 2011.
They are retained here for archive purposes only.
Questions about materials // Roundtable
Post by tatts // Apr 23, 2009, 12:48am
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tatts
Total Posts: 145
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Where would be the best place to learn about creating materials? like the ones that you see for kerkythea.
Are they the same type of materials that are used in truespace? Can they be used with truespace?
Can these be made with a normal editor like Gimp2 ? Or would I need something more high end like Photoshop which I can't afford right now. :)
Also, If I were to create a house and used some of these materials to help create high res textures. Is that ok?
For example, if i were to use kerkythea and rendered and house in a orthogaphic sideview, could I use the final rendered picture as a texture? So in the end it is the rendered picture that is used for the texture and not the materials. |
Post by v3rd3 // Apr 23, 2009, 1:32am
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v3rd3
Total Posts: 388
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You can certainly create textures with any application that can generate the bitmap formats accepted by TS. There is a whole world of capable applications in the open source, freeware, less than photoshop category that do a wonderful job.
I use the Gimp (open source), Project Dogwaffle(freeware), Paint.Net (freeware learning this one), Vicmans photo editor (great freeware editor and can use free photoshop filters here), Artweaver (freeware Dogwaffle equivalent), Pixia (freeware photo editor... gradients in brushes seem smoother than most tools, Inkscape (open source vector based editor), and finally ACD Canvas X which works with both bitmap and vector based illustration, not free but does an awful lot for less than Adobe. I picked up Canvas 8 on a magazine cover CD and upgraded for $50.00 US. I also have Jasc Paint Shop Pro version 8.
The choice you have for texturing is really one of image based, photos or painted images, or procedural, programmed using a language recognized by the rendering system.
The Truespace tutorials have a course called "Texture University". Have a look at this course as it explains a great deal and should not be missed.
As to your question regarding the house textures ... I do not see the need to apply a procedural in Kerkythea, render and reapply the texture as an image unless your final render is to be done in a different package.
Good hunting. |
Post by RAYMAN // Apr 23, 2009, 2:12am
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RAYMAN
Total Posts: 1496
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The nice thing about Kerkythea is that there are big libraries of materials
that were made for you. Same with Lightworks render engine.
Kerkythea has got physicaly correct materials and are not very hard to make.
Theres a tutorial that gets into details at the Kerky site (material editor)
in the tutorium section from Patricks.
Dont mix up shaders .... materials and textures !
Textures are the ones that you put into the chanels and are created by
2d image software like the ones that are mentioned here.
Yes it also is a perfectly viable solution to render a surface and apply
it as a texture. This is called texture baking as opposed to lightbaking were you render a GI render into a surface(see applications like Giles). You can also use textures or pictures to draw or spray onto a surface with applications
like 3d Coat or Zbrush which is texture painting...
Kerkythea materials cant be used in anything but Kerkythea like Lightworks cant be used in anything else either.... but the textures and Uv maps that you make can be ! |
Post by TomG // Apr 23, 2009, 3:47am
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TomG
Total Posts: 3397
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On the issue of rendering to make a texture, that can be handy. This lets you capture shadows, lighting, surfacing detail etc, that you might find hard to draw. It also lets you make real-time scenes with lower poly counts.
For instance, an emergency hatch on a wall, you could model it, with nuts and bolts and indented lettering and apply some procedural shaders for a rusty metal look, then render from directly above and use that image as a texture in a material, painted onto a simple cube. That way you get the "look" of the high poly object, but on a low poly object. Of course, the shadows won't respond to dynamic lighting, and you will notice the nuts and bolts are not really raised if you get up close.
Here you are just using tS as you might use a 2D package, only some people (like me) might find it easier to model nuts and bolts then render to get the shadows using bump maps to make the surface rough, than they would find drawing those sort of details in 2D.
As noted, a texture is a 2D image that you use in a material.
A material is a complete collection that defines the way the surface reacts to light, including the color, the shininess, the reflectiveness, etc.
Materials can only be made in 3D packages, and only in tools specific to the 3D engine, so you can only make a material in trueSpace in this case. But textures you can make any way you normally make a 2D image.
HTH!
Tom |
Post by tatts // Apr 23, 2009, 3:57am
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tatts
Total Posts: 145
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Thank you guys :) Dont mix up shaders .... materials and textures ! I'm ok about textures lol :) but the difference between the materials and shaders confuses me abit or atleast did. In darkbasic, shaders are applied by using fx files in your code along with the appropriate textures of course. I knew that materials had bump mapping and that you can make things shinny and all, But after playing with some of the materials in kerkythea, I'm reallizing that these are not just shaders, A floor tile for example blew me away after I saw the render, It had every attribute that I could think of. It had the creases for the grought, the tile had a bumpy surface and it shinned, reflections. the light bouncing from it was incredibly real looking, it looked like I could actually touch it. Shaders are nice but they don't look anything like the materials i've tried.
Light mappers such as gile's are nice but they can't give the same reallism like kerkythea can. And seeing that you can view in orthgraphic in kerkythea, I just thought it would be a great way to get some very real looking textures. Of course I do know this would be a long process, But i think i might be worth seeing something done like this.
Kerkythea can make lightmaps that can be used outside the program?
thanks v3r3d i'll look into some of those programs and video, The reason for rendering and using a final image as a texture is because, lightmappers such as gile's just can't get the realistic look that kerkythea can. I know things like reflections would really be useless in a texture, But the way the lighting bounces off certain materials and the way the shadows appear. Normal lightmappers are not capable of producing these type of effects.
TomG said (This lets you capture shadows, lighting, surfacing detail etc, that you might find hard to draw.) Exactly my thought Tom :) |
Post by TomG // Apr 23, 2009, 4:23am
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TomG
Total Posts: 3397
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Material - grouping of all shaders that go into making a final result. Includes everything from color to bump and / or normal maps to reflectance settings etc.
Shader - normally works in one channel to create a specific effect. Eg a color shader will define the color of the material, a reflectance shader works out how the surface is affected by light (taking the results of the color shader and modifying that based on various calculations on how light sources are affecting the surface), a bump map shader makes the surface appear rough, etc.
These may be procedural (mathematical formulae are used to work out the color, or reflectance settings, or bump map settings, etc - come with parameters that can be adjusted, eg the tile shader you mention below, or mathematically using noise functions etc to work out something that looks like wood), or they may be based on a texture map (you just load an image of wood to determine the color).
Note, some procedural shaders may automatically adjust values in different channels from one setting (eg if you set "grout width" on a tile shader, perhaps it controls both color and bump map from that one value). Ultimately you have separate shaders at work, with a combined front end interface adjusting them all, is perhaps the clearest way to think about that.
Texture - a 2D image used in a shader to determine results. Most usually for color, but can also be for bump maps, normal maps, reflectance settings, etc - eg a greyscale map determining how shiny something is at any given point (specular map), etc.
HTH!
Tom |
Post by prodigy // Apr 23, 2009, 4:24am
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prodigy
Total Posts: 3029
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Let organize all this thing
Textures are 2d Bitmaps (picture or draw of stones, grass etc)
Shaders (Color, Bumpmap, Transp. and Reflectance)
Material, is a Sum of Shaders (with their Settings) and textures..
(Textures)
Both Render engines has Textures Support.
Lightworks also support Procedural textures (textures generated)
Vray has support BUT NOT in TS Vray.
(Shaders)
Truespace Offer few predefined Shaders (glass, metal, etc) Bumpmap that can be changed with textures etc...
Lightworks (ModelSide) has 2 options if you want to create your own shaders.
ShaderMagic (free) or DarkTree (Pay).
And Lightworks HAS Open Sdk so you are free to create your own shader software if you has the will..
There's NO WAY to create new shaders for VRAY or Softwares like Darktree for Vray cos Vray HAS NO Open Sdk.. (and Caligari discontinued Vray)
In Vray you are limited to use what Caligari offered, nothing less, nothing more.
*Remember LW DarkTree or other LW shaders ARE NOT compatible with Vray. So there's no Workaround to make New LW Shaders work in Vray or make them compatible for example..
(Materials)
You can use a Brick Texture with a Mate Shader to create a Brick Material.
Or you can Use a Brick Texture with a Glass Shader to create a new (weird) Material..
Mixing this 2 things with bumpmaps or normal maps is where you are free to make your own materials.
And forget to have a Glossy SSS shader..
Remember TS Shader has values, so you are free to change it at your own taste..
In conclusion:
We can create Textures (outside TS) (Photoshop, Gimp, Corel Photopaint, etc)
There's NO WAY to create shaders in Vray (Yes modify values from some shaders offered with vray)
Lightworks (ModelSide) Has some Shader Creators and Remember LW only works in Model side (the old side)
Materials are a Mix of Textures and Shaders..
**Ok end of the edit.. haha |
Post by RAYMAN // Apr 23, 2009, 4:52am
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RAYMAN
Total Posts: 1496
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Tatts to be exact Giles can make lightmaps that can be used in Kerkythea
and not the other way round.The most important reason to use giles is to
make materials for realtime displays including games.Because you dont have realtime Gi solutions !
The real reason why Kerky looks so good is both the render engine and
the materials ! Its a combination of both ! Same as MLT renders from Maxwell !Neither realtime display nor Lightworks will give you the look.
The nearest you will come is Vray !And that with highspeed..... but that has been dropped ... downside you will have to make all your materials
and make the presets for your render. You dont have that many presets....
Plus you cant load bitmaps into every channel which you can do in Kerky.
Reflections arent useless in a texture ! Both reflections and bumpmap
and shadow rendered in a texture can get you a detail that you would need
thousands of polygons for..... but you only have one for the face that you apply your texture to.I often use Kerkythea renders on Vue6Inf faces !;)
I will show an example tonight that i make for you !
Peter |
Post by tatts // Apr 23, 2009, 5:00am
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tatts
Total Posts: 145
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Thanks TomG for explaining this. I get it now. Sounds like it would be alot of work to create them, but I must say they would be worth it. :)
@ prodigy, I don't have vray so that is not a problem. Also im not sure how using lightworks would work for me. I was mentioning in another thread that for some reason, model space is lagging for me with a model that is 47,000 verts so im not sure it'll work very good for me. |
Post by tatts // Apr 23, 2009, 5:28am
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tatts
Total Posts: 145
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Tatts to be exact Giles can make lightmaps that can be used in Kerkythea
and not the other way round.
OK! :)
Reflections arent useless in a texture !
Sorry what I meant was, As far as things like mirrors and glass reflection. Mainly just things that would normally have actual reflections in my game engine. Like the body of a car, I have darkshader which easily allows me to add reflection shaders to my vehicles/glass/mirrors and so on. |
Post by RAYMAN // Apr 23, 2009, 1:54pm
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RAYMAN
Total Posts: 1496
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I promised you a picture of what use a Kerkythea render on an object would have here youvbe got thousands of buildings all with a kerkythea rendered
texture...... You can pull off some ajmount of detail and objects that you couldnt with true meshes like hundreds of windows on 1 wall !;)
This is an examole of the amount that you could render.
Be free to make your own tests
first goes into diffuse channel and second into bump |
Post by tatts // Apr 23, 2009, 2:26pm
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tatts
Total Posts: 145
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Rayman that is very cool, thank you :) I love that sky and how it shows the haze like it does. is that done with kerkythea to?
Thank you for the example. :) Kerkythea is amazing, even more so considering this is freeware. I'm glad i started looking into materials and such, I really did miss out on alot. But better late than never, and im looking forward to learning alot more about it and hopefully do up some really nice stuff worthy of the gallery. :)
Thanks a million for all your help Rayman. :)
(Edit) I almost forgot, I know the direct X export usually can only handle like 60,000 verts or polies what ever it is. What is the limit for the 3ds exporter? |
Post by RAYMAN // Apr 23, 2009, 10:38pm
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RAYMAN
Total Posts: 1496
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Tatts thats Kerkythea rendered material texture you see in the post
applied in Vue6 inf with the ecosystem. but the same amount can be achieved
with the instancing in Kerkythea itself too : Note that I just made 1 buiding that way but I could have just as easily made 30 aand you wouldnt notice any patterns. I used the same method in here
http://forums1.caligari.com/truespace/showthread.php?t=5613&highlight=cityscapes
The limit for export in ts 3ds is about the same 80000 polys on most meshes.
Luuv goes higher with obj. format ...;) |
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