Textures¶

Activation¶

Enable the Diffuse > Color checkbox on the Textures > Influence panel.

Additional Settings¶

Influence > Diffuse > Color

Influence of the texture on the diffuse color. The default value is 1.0.

Influence > Blend

The type of the interaction with the material color (Material > Diffuse > Color), or with the vertex color if the Vertex Color Paint checkbox is enabled. The following types are supported: Mix (mixes with the color), Multiply (multiplies by the color). The default value is Mix.

Activation¶

Enable the Specular > Color checkbox on the Textures > Influence panel.

Additional Settings¶

Influence > Specular > Color

The influence of the texture on the reflected light color. The default value is 1.0.

Influence > Blend

The type of interaction with the reflected light color of the material (Material > Specular > Color). Mix (mixes with the color) is the only supported type. The default value is Mix.

The specular map can be packed to the alpha channel of a diffuse texture for optimization purposes. In such case it is required for the texture to enable the Diffuse > Color and Specular > Color checkboxes simultaneously. The color range is limited by gray tints.

Activation¶

Set the Image > Color Space parameter to Non-Color.

Enable the Geometry > Normal checkbox on the Textures > Influence panel.

Additional Settings¶

Influence > Geometry > Normal

Normal map influence on the resulting normals calculation. The default value is 1.0.

Activation¶

For the normal map enable the Parallax panel in addition to the Geometry > Normal checkbox.

Additional Settings¶

Parallax > Parallax Scale

Influence factor for the relief surface effect. The default value is 0.03.

Parallax > Parallax Steps

The number of iterations for the relief surface calculations. Bigger value leads to better quality but is more computationally expensive.

Parallax > Parallax LOD distance

Distance at which the parallax effect is observed.

Activation¶

1. In case of node materials a stencil map should be used in the corresponding node structure.
2. In case of generic materials a stencil map should be located in a texture slot between two mixed diffuse textures. A stencil map requires to set both the RGB to Intensity and the Stencil checkboxes on the Textures > Influence panel.

Additional Settings¶

In the case of generic materials one of the mixed diffuse textures can have the Normal (“matcap”) texture coordinates type.

Limitations¶

In case of generic materials the engine only interprets the red channel of a stencil map. Specular maps or normal maps (if any) are not being mixed. The Mapping > Size setting is extracted from the first texture and is applied to all remaining textures.

Example¶

The apple model material has the following textures: a normal map, a diffuse texture with a specular map in its alpha channel, a stencil map, a diffuse “matcap” map, an environment map.

Supported formats (containers):¶

• webm, VP8 codec (Chrome, Firefox)
• m4v, H.264 codec (Chrome, Safari, IE)
• ogv, Theora codec (Chrome, Firefox)

We recommend to use WebM as a basic format. It is an open standard supported by the majority of browsers and offers good picture quality.

Converting resources between different formats is described in the corresponding section.

Setting up the Texture¶

The following settings are available for video textures on the Texture > Image panel:

Image > Frames

Length of the played fragment in frames.

Image > Offset

The number of the frame from which the video playback starts.

Image > Cyclic

Start video playback afresh each time it finishes.

Image > Allow NLA

Play back the texture as part of an NLA track. Additionally, enable NLA in the global scene settings through activating Scene > NLA. Enabled by default.

For NLA-controlled textures the following option is also applicable:

Image > Start

Video playback delay (in frames) when using non-linear animation.

For non-NLA-controlled textures the following option is also applicable:

Image > Auto Refresh

Play back the video immediately after the scene is loaded.

The video playback rate can be increased. To do this set Scene > Dimensions > Frame rate to a value which is different from the FPS value for the videos. Video playback rate is increased proportionally to the ratio of the scene’s FPS and the video’s FPS.

Specifics of Mobile Devices¶

The peculiarities for mobile devices are as follows:

1. Normal operation of video textures on iPhone is not possible because these devices play back videos via the standard iOS video player. For these devices you need to convert your videos to special .seq format by using our converter.
2. some devices only support playing back only one video file.
3. stable operation is not guaranteed if the Offset value is not zero.
4. not all devices support changing the video playback rate.
5. iPad and iPhone do not provide the possibility to control the audio volume for video, and so the audio track should be removed from the video before the file is added to Blender.

Making Environment Maps¶

Blender has an option for baking a scene into an environment map. To do this:

1. Create a scene for baking.
2. Add an empty object in the supposed point of view (Add > Empty).
3. Go to the World tab then to the Textures tab and create a new texture with the Environment Map type.
4. On the Environment Map panel select the Static source, then select the empty object in the Viewport Object field, then set the 2^N dimension (512, 1024 etc).
5. Render the scene by pressing F12 (a camera is required).
6. Save the environment map into a file.

Activation¶

Select the Environment Map texture type (Type). Enable the Shading > Mirror checkbox on the Textures > Influence panel.

Additional Settings¶

Influence > Shading > Mirror

The degree to which the mirror map affects the reflection. The default value is 1.0.

Activation¶

Create a world texture of Environment Map type. Select the Export Options > Sky Texture Usage > SKYDOME option. Enable World > Render Sky under the World tab.

Additional Settings¶

The engine also supports parameters from the world texture’s Influence panel which are used for sky rendering. Mixing of the world texture with color depends on the World > Horizon Color and World > Zenith Color parameters, as well as on the Paper Sky, Blend Sky and Real Sky options. All mixing options are supported (Mix, Add, Multiply etc).

Render-To-Texture¶

An image of a 3D scene rendered in real time also can be used as a texture for an object in another scene (“main” scene). This technique is known as render-to-texture (RTT) and can be activated by following these steps:

1. Create an additional scene that will be rendered to the texture.
2. For convenience, give this scene a unique name.
3. Create a World setting for this scene.
4. Add the objects you need to the scene.
5. Add a camera to the scene and set it up.
6. Then, switch to the main scene.
7. Select the target object and create a UV map for it.
8. Create a texture that will act as the rendering target.
9. Set the None type for this texture.
10. Set the UV value for the Coordinates parameter under the Mapping tab.
11. Select the Scene type in the Export Options > Source Type menu.
12. Specify the name of the source scene in the Export Options > Source ID field.
13. Set the texture size in the Export Options > Source Size field (in pixels).

The engine also supports the cyclic rendering of scenes to each other.

Note

A project should contain at least one scene which is not rendered by any other scenes.

Canvas textures¶

A <canvas> HTML element can be used as a texture. It can be modified via API.

Set the None type for the texture of the target object on the main scene, and select the Canvas type in the Export Options > Source Type menu. Set the texture size in the Export Options > Source Size field (in pixels).

Use the textures module to handle such textures. See the example below.

var m_tex = require("textures");
...
var obj = m_scenes.get_object_by_name("NAME");
var ctx = m_tex.get_canvas_ctx(obj, "TEXTURE_NAME");
...
// operations with canvas context
...
m_tex.update_canvas_ctx(obj, "TEXTURE_NAME");

Use get_canvas_texture_context() to obtain a context - this method requires the “canvas_id” identifier which should be defined in Blender. After operations with the context, the update_canvas_ctx() function has to be called which will render modifications of the “canvas_id” element.

Note

If one Canvas type texture is assigned in Blender to several different objects, then after engine loading it still will be one texture and not several different ones. Any changes applied to it will be applied to all objects using this texture, which can be useful for optimization purposes. In case this effect is not needed, you should assign different textures in Blender or use deep copy after engine startup.