Graphics Reference
In-Depth Information
of the wood texture can be adjusted by manipulating the Size settings in the Texture Locator.
Figure 9-20
shows the texture with X and Y values of 100 mm and a Z size of 500 mm (to stretch out the texture).
Figure 9-20:
The beginning of a procedural wood floor
The panels and wood colors now need to be created. There are a couple of decent textures that can be
used for panels, but in this case, the Grid texture (in the Enhance: modo Textures
⇒
Geometric section) will
do the job. When added, the texture will not appear to be a fit at all, but by selecting the Output Regions
check box, the grid will be broken into panels. To get a better scale, the panels need to be elongated as the
wood was earlier. Changing the X, Y, and Z Size settings to 500 m, 500 m, and 3 m, respectively, the panels
begin to take form, as shown in
Figure 9-21
.
Notice that the individual planks are evenly aligned instead of
being staggered. This even distribution demonstrates one of the caveats of working with procedural textures.
Procedurals are good at providing randomness and order, but are not well suited for handling something in
between. To create something like the semirandom placement of wood floor panels, photographic and manu-
ally created textures work best. In some cases, however, this kind of texture (when finished) can provide the
needed result when photographs are either too difficult to obtain or to implement (in cases where memory
used by many large image maps is not acceptable, for instance).
A few more steps will complete this wood texture. The last steps refine coloration, add bump map edges
to the planks, and provide some added variation to the material.
1.
Change the Background and Foreground Colors on the Grid to two shades of brown that fit in a
wood texture.
2.
Create an instance of the Grid layer.
