Materials Workspace ( tutorial 1 )


What type of surface material that will appear on objects, is set-up in the Material Workspace. There are eight channels that define the properties of the material, each channel has options to set the element and value of intensity used to drive the channel. The combination of channels used, along with their elements and values produces a material which defines how the surface of the object interacts with light and thus appears when rendered.


Once a material is made, it can be saved, then opened to use on other objects. This option is very useful when using the same material on other objects.

Channel Options

Each channel has a title bar with the channel's name, a preview window which displays the current element and intensity. The preview window is also used as an access to edit or modify the current element, by clicking on the window will open the edit palette for the element. A menu bar with a text name of the current element, and a drop down menu to select elements. A value slider to set the intensity of the channel.


Material Channels

There are two types of material channels, color driven channels and alpha driven channels.
Color material channels use the colors of the element to drive the channel.
Alpha material channels use grayscale values to drive the channel. So when an element such as a texture map or shader has color information, the channel only uses the grayscale values of the colors to drive the channel, with black being 0% and white being 100% and shades of gray in between.

Diffuse Color: is the primary color channel. It uses the color information of the element for the surface color of the material. Under most circumstances the diffuse color channel is used to determine the color of the object.
Definition: ( Diffuse ) Light that is evenly reflected from an objects surface. An optical property that determines how an object responds to light in the scene.

Specular Color: determines the color of the highlights produced by lights. It uses the color information of the element for the highlight's color of the material.
Definition: ( Specular ) An optical property that defines how light is reflected off an object as highlight.

Specular Roughness: an alpha driven channel that determines the size and shape of the specular highlight. This channel can be used to break up the sharp edges of the specular highlights.

Ambient Color: the secondary color channel, it uses the color information of the element for the surface color of the material. The Ambient channel is good to make objects appear as though their glowing, or if they are in very dark or shaded areas of the scene the ambient channel can illuminate them so they are more visible.
Definition: ( Ambient ) Light that has no point of origin or specific direction. It effects all parts of objects or scenes equally.

Transparency: an alpha driven channel that determines how clear, ( see through ) or invisible an object is.
Definition: ( Transparency ) The measurement of an object's ability to let light pass through it's surface.

Refraction: an alpha driven channel that determines how much distortion is seen through a transparent object. Like the distortion seen when looking through a magnifying glass or telescope.
Definition: ( Refraction ) Distortion or deflection of light as it passes though a translucent object.

Reflectivity: an alpha driven channel that determines how reflective an object is.
Definition: ( Reflectivity) The degree to which an object bounces light back from it's surface.

Bump: an alpha driven channel which can make an object appear to have bumps,a hump, ridges or cracks or rough areas.
Definition: ( Bump Map ) Determines the way an objects surface roughness is rendered.

Material Elements

The elements used in a material channel can range from paint, color, texture maps, quick time animations, shaders, or combination of the selections.

Color Elements:
The first set of elements use a solid color, they are preset colors but can be modified by clicking on the channel's preview window to bring up the color edit palette to select a custom color. These element can be used to color the object leaving the paint element open to use as an alpha element. Since paint can be keyframed and used as alpha, it is possible to animate some of the material properties using this method.

Alternative Elements



None: completely disables the channel.

Value: is a built in grayscale for channels that use alpha values.

Paint: uses Amorphium's paint surface layer.

Texture: when texture is selected an open dialog comes up to locate the texture map. Once the map is loaded it can be edited by clicking on the preview window.

The texture option palette has a preview window which shows edit changes in real time. the Replace Image button will bring the open dialog back up to replace the texture for another.

The scale options can be used by moving the slider or typing in the values. X=horizontally, Y=vertically. 100.000 = no scaling, values lower than 100.000 scale the texture larger, values greater than 100.000 scale the texture smaller.

No Scaling

Scaled X

Scaled Y

Scaled X and Y

The mirror options will determine how the texture will be tiled when it's scale smaller. With no mirroring the texture is repeated tiled side by side. Mirroring the texture puts a reversed copy of the texture side by side on the axis being mirrored.

No Mirroring

Mirrored X

Mirrored Y

Mirrored X and Y

The channel options determine what image channels are used, RGB ( red, green, blue ) and alpha channel if the image has an alpha channel. Only one channel can be used. The invert options, inverts the color in the RGB channel or inverts the grayscale in the alpha channel.

RGB Channel

RGB Channel Inverted

Alpha Channel

Alpha Channel Inverted

Movie: will use a Quick Time movie for a texture, used mainly for animations. The movie will play as the animation is rendering, for best results the frame rate of the quick time movie material should match the frame rate of the animation to be rendered. No keyframe need to be set for the movie material. Not all quick time codecs are supported, the compression codec needs to be the same as image codecs supported by Amorphium. The movie palette options are the same as the options for texture maps and work the same.


Time: is a shader used with animation. It is a grayscale value that changes over the set period of time. How the grayscale values behave is set-up on the time option palette.


The grayscale value is graphed to a wave, the top of the wave ( peak ) represents white, and the bottom ( low ) represents black.

The number or periods ( Nr of Periods: ) sets how many peaks are in the wave. The Period (sec): sets how long it takes to play the wave when animating. Once the wave has played it repeats it's self through the course of the animation. So if the Nr of Periods: is set at two and the Period ( sec): is set at two, the wave would play two times in a four second animation.

The Function Bar has various styles for the shape of the wave.

The (A) value slider sets height for the low portions or the wave, and the (B) value slider sets the height for the peak portions of the wave.

These are the settings for this four second animation.


Shaders
Shaders are Amorphium's on board texture elements, each is a small programs which creates the texture by bending one or more elements with the effect it's programmed to generate.

These are the standard options for most shaders, when more options are available they will be explained per shader.

The color options is where the two ( or more ) colors to be used are loaded. The two colors are then used in the shader's color channel.
By clicking the option bar the element menu will come up, so any element can be used in the color channels.

The scale slider sizes the shader.

Clouds Scaled 100

Clouds Scaled 500

Clouds Scaled 1000

Clouds: creates clouds, with blurred blending between the two colors. Good shader to use in the Specular Roughness channel to break up the highlight.

Clouds, Diffuse Channel

Clouds, Specular Roughness Channel

Rough: similar to clouds but with smaller random patches and less blurring between colors. Works good for roughen up the surface in the Bump Channel

Rough, Diffuse Channel

Rough, Specular Roughness Channel

Rough, Bump Channel

Noise: creates random noise, with slight blurring between colors. Good for breaking up specular highlight and creating bumps.

Noise, Diffuse Channel

Noise, Specular Roughness Channel

Noise, Bump Channel

Rust: creates random splotchy areas with rough edges and no blurring between colors. Good for layering elements and creating old looking objects with rust or peeling paint.

Rust Layered in Diffuse Channel

Rust Layered in Transparency Channel

Rust Layered in Bump Channel

Dots: creates uniformed dots, the number depends on the scaling.

Dots, Scaled to 100 Diffuse Channel

Dots, Scaled to 500 Diffuse Channel

Dots, Scaled to 1000 Diffuse Channel

Gradient: gradually blends between the two colors, creating a ramp between them.

Gradient, Diffuse Channel

Gradient, Transparency Channel

Gradient, Layered in Bump Channel

Checkerboard: creates uniformed squares, with an option for lines in between the squares. The scaling options are broken down , so the X (horizontal) and Y (vertical) can be sizes separately. There is a third color option for the edge (border between squares), also a scale option for the edge size and edge smooth option to blur between the edge and squares color.

Checkerboard, hard edge

Checkerboard, soft edge

Checkerboard, no edge

Bricks: creates a block pattern, there is a third color option for the edge (lines between the blocks). And separate X, Y, scaling options with an edge smooth option and edge scaling option. For bricks there is an added option to enable/disable the second color. When the second color is disabled all the blocks are color 1, when the second color is enabled the colors alternate between every other role.

Bricks, One Color

Bricks, Two Colors

Marble: creates horizontal line with heavy blurring between the two colors. The scaling option sizes the width and number of lines. There is also a turbulence option that random's the line's direction and roughen's the lines edges.

Marble, No Turbulence, Scale 100

Marble, Turbulence 50, Scale 100

Marble, Turbulence 100, Scale 400

Wood: similar to Marble but the lines are circular.

Wood, No Turbulence, Scale 500

Wood, Turbulence 100, Scale 500

Wood, Turbulence 100, Scale 20

Parquet: creates a tile with off-setting wood grain per tile. The scale option determines the number and size of tile. The Planks per Tile determines the number of wood grain planks in each tile. Turbulence disrupts color 1 and waves disrupts color 2.

Parquet,Scale 20, PPT 4, Turbulence 0.5 Waves 0.5

Parquet, Scale 80, PPT 2, Turbulence 0.3 Waves 1

Scale 150, PPT 10, Turbulence 0 Waves 0

Cell: Creates a pattern of squares which can be random to different sizes shapes and positions. Scaling changes the size and amount of cells. There is a menu to select different type of edges for the cell lines. And an option for the edge width which scales the edge line size. The randomness options takes the cells from being uniform squares to being random cell blocks. The cell shader works nice for creating reptile skin and other bumpy materials.

Cell, Uniform Squares

Cell, Random Cell Blocks

Cell, Reptile Skin

Blobs: Similar to cell but uses circles, The fall off type menu has selection for how the fall off of the edges of the circles will be. Blob Radius adjust the size of the circles. The randomness options takes the circles from being uniform to being random blobs. One of the many materials this shader can make are vents or grills.

Blobs, Uniform Circles

Blobs, Random Blobs

Blobs, Vent

Mixing and Blending Shaders
These shaders are used to mix or blend colors, shaders or texture maps

Mixer: combines color (channel) one and color (channel) two together using a mixer channel. When the mixer value is 0.000 it is 100% of channel one, when the mixer value is 100 it is 100% of channel two. A mixer value of 50 is 50% of both channels. The mixer channel uses grayscale values of the element loaded in it to mix the colors ( or elements ) in channel one & two. Black values will only uses channel one, white values will use both channel one and two evenly. Shades of gray will use more of channel one then channel two. This is a very useful shader to use when layering elements because both channels cam be mix evenly.

Mix Colors Using Cloud Shader

Mix Shaders

Mix Textures

PIP: Placing labels or bump to a specific area are some of the many uses for the Picture in a Picture shader. The Left, Top, Right and Bottom sliders are used to size and position the second color channel which can hold a label texture.

Label Texture

Label Texture and Bump

Add & Sub: These blending mode shaders add or subtract, color one, from color two. An easy way to understand how they work is to demonstrate them using the color slider. First understand that all colors generated on the computer in RGB mode are derived from Red, Green, and Blue.

The Add shader adds color 2 with color 1, to create a new color.

If color 1 is red.

Then green is added in color 2, the results is yellow

If color 1 is red.

Then blue is added in color 2, the results is violet

If color 1 is Blue.

Then green is added in color 2, the results is light blue

Since White is 100% all colors Any color added to it will still make white. Or when white is added to any color it will make white.

Since Black has no color any color added to it will make that color.

The Sub shader subtracts color 2 from color 1, to create a new color.

If color 1 is yellow

Then green is subtracted in color 2, the results is red

If color 1 is violet.

Then red is subtracted in color 2, the results is blue

If color 1 is Light Blue.

Then blue is subtracted in color 2, the results is green

Since White is 100% all colors, any color subtracted will make it the remaining two colors.

Since Black has no color any color subtracted from it will be black. And any color subtracted by it will be black

Multiply: Looks at the color information in each channel and multiplies color 1 by the color 2. The result color is usually a darker color. Multiplying any color with black produces black. Multiplying any color with white leaves the color unchanged

Multiply Equals

Multiply Equals

These are just basic examples of how the Blending Shaders work, when using complex texture maps or layered shaders the blending shaders can make drastic or settle changes in the material.

Normal Texture

Blending Mode Sub

Blending Mode Add

Distortion Effect Shaders
These shaders will add distortion to any of the other shaders or a texture map.

Turbulence: will add turbulence distortion to the element put in the shaders channel.

Cloud Shader

Checkerboard Shader

Light Turbulence on a Texture Map

Twirl: will distort the element using a twirl filter. A value of 50 equals no twirling, lower values than 50 are counter clock wise twirling. Greater values than 50 are clock wise twirling.

Cloud Shader

Checkerboard Shader

Light Turbulence on a Texture Map

This interface tutorial is written and provided by : Stephen Ray