University of Oregon - Department of Architecture - ARCH 424/524 Cheng - Advanced Design Development Media

Session Thirteen

Rendering III: Textures


Feb. 18, 1997
Objectives: To understand how to control texture mapping

I. Review of Student Work

II. Textures

A. The appearance of a surface is determined by the local color and material and how light hits it. Shaders: a collection of surface characteristics and shading techniques. Each program sorts particular characteristics. FormZ has: B. Window vs. Project Characteristics C. Mapping Projections

D. Tiling
- Tile scaling and centering

E. Texture types: Procedural Image-Map Wrapping vs. Procedural Solids
- Default textures, stored image maps, invented image maps

TRY IT: Wrapped Image Map - Brick
Standard bricks have a set nominal dimension of 4" wide x 8" long x 2-2/3" high. Can you map the brick arch so that the bricks are to scale?

  1. Copy brickarch.fmz, birchtree.fmz, Madison St & birch to your guest folder.
  2. Open brickarch.fmz
  3. In the Surface Styles Pallette, click on the purple color.
  4. Under Color, choose Brick, Textured. Adjust colors with Options
  5. Under Bump, choose Brick, Textured. Play with Options
  6. From the left icon menu, choose TexMap from the 12th row and then click on the little stepped block.
  7. Under Wrapped Textures, set Lock to None, Horizontal to 8" and Vertical to 5.667".
  8. Find the preview button to the lower right hand corner and switch to tiled and rendered.
  9. Try adjusting the xyz tile mapping of the texture map to give a realistic look.
  10. If you have more time, try mapping bricks onto the arch components. Why is the arch split in components this way?
TRY IT: Procedural Solid Shader - Wood
  1. Create a 2" x 8" x 6'-0" board (adjust grid snaps)
  2. In the Surface Styles Pallette, choose a style to change
  3. Under Color, choose Wood from the second group of textures.
  4. From the left icon menu, choose Color from the 12th row and then click on the 2x8 board.
  5. From the left icon menu, choose TexMap from the 12th row and then click on the 2x8 board.
  6. As above try adjusting the solid texture size, the orientation and the mapping of the texture map to give a realistic look.

III. Masks for Reflectivity, Transparency & Bump Maps

Alpha Channel: Grayscale or B&W stencil

Alpha Map lightness can be linked to reflectance, opacity, projection of bump.

TRY IT: Tree profiles with transparency mapping

  1. Open birchtree.fmz.
  2. Click on the Surface Style that shows the tree.
  3. Under Transparency, examine the difference between none and Image Map.
  4. Under the Transparency Option, Load the Birch image map and toggle the Use Alpha Channel.

IV. Environmental characteristics

Background: picture pasted on the back plane

Environmental mapping: what is reflected on surfaces

Depth shading & Fog


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edited Feb. 17, 1997 by nywcheng