Graphics Programs Reference
In-Depth Information
thing that actually changes is the way your new shader reacts
to outside influences such as light.
There are some great plug-ins for 3ds Max that even give
you a node-based system similar to other modeling packages.
A node-based system is great for visualizing how your shader
is made up and will function.
Using the Maps Rollout to Add Realism
Now that we've got the basics out of the way, we can get to
the nitty-gritty stuff. First of all, let's open the Maps rollout so
I can explain what you are looking at.
This will open up a long list of empty slots along with their
corresponding names and spinners, as shown at the left of Fig-
ure 4-7.
The names to the left let you know what channel you are
working in. The spinners and empty map slots to the right are
what you will use to modify that channel. Map channels often
rely on images. You can use a color image or a black and white
image. For your Diffuse Color channel, you would obviously
want to use a color texture, but for most others, you would
want to use a black and white image.
3D packages use black and white images to assign proper-
ties; white is positive and black is negative. A very basic
example of this would be if I created a black and white check-
erboard pattern and placed it into the Bump channel of my
Maps rollout. The bump I would get as a result of this would
be everything that is white would be “raised” and everything
that was black would be “lowered.”
This rule applies to almost all channels. Just remember:
White is positive and black is negative. Once you start to
understand the map channels and how they affect each other,
you can very quickly come up with realistic-looking textures.
