Graphics Reference
In-Depth Information
Creating a rock material using image maps
In this recipe, we will create a realistic rock material that looks like the samples shown in the
following screenshot, using an image map. We'll see a material made with procedurals in the
this recipe.
The image-based rock material as it appears in the final rendering
Image maps are particularly useful for several reasons: they already have the necessary color
information of a natural surface ready to be used; they can be easily edited in any image
editor to obtain different kinds of information, for example, high levels for the bump maps;
and they are processed faster than procedurals by the software (procedural textures must be
calculated every time). Moreover, they can nowadays be found easily on the Web for free, in
several sizes and resolutions.
For our recipe, we'll use the
rockcolor_tileable_low.png
image map, which you can find
in the
textures
folder provided with this cookbook. This is just a low-resolution texture image
provided for the sake of this exercise. Obviously, you can use any other different image with a
bigger resolution. Here is a screenshot of the tileable rock image texture for your reference:
The tileable rock image texture provided with this cookbook
