Texturing using Blending

Welcome. In this tutorial I want to let you have a look into the way I textured the scene below.
I wish to concentrate on two techniques that will serve you well on plenty of different occasions.
This image was created using 3D Total's TotalTextures-CD's - a quality collection of high-resolution texture maps.

Missing Plaster


First, I created a spline, as you can see in white in the image below.

Make sure that the beginnings and ends are welded, so you will not run into problems later on.

It's easy to find what's wrong in a simple model like this, but it's a good routine to weld the end points, before you get lost in a more complex model. Once it was done, I created a small plane and placed it in the same level plane with the spline, so it's not in the front of it, nor behind.

Secondly, I extruded my spline. With the amount you can control the thickness of the wall.

Then I dropped a UVW modifier on each piece for texturing (plane for the plane and box for the wall, makes sense, right?)


I used only 3DTotal maps in this image.... as you can see a brick and another wall color did the job just fine.

I gave a good amount of bump to each texture and lowered the Blur, which makes the surfaces look really rough.

If you place the light in a good angle, it will show even more. You have to play with it a little bit.

And this completes the general idea of how the wall was made. I recommend this way of creating holes on a wall in Max, since Max's boolean operation is a nightmare, but of course it works in all other packages as well. :)

Texturing using Blending

This brief tutorial will explain how the door on the right of the image was textured.

The technique described will, of course, work for all other objects too.This image was created using 3D Total's TotalTextures-CD's.

Step 1 - creating the "Blend"-material

Open the Material Editor, choose an empty slot and click on "Standard" to change it to "Blend" as you can see in the image below.

You will see that you now have the opportunity to slot two materials and one mask in, here. Select Material 1, click on the Maps rollout and assign a texture map to the Diffuse channel and click on the blue/white checker box to display this material on the object in the viewport on the object.

 
Now select Material 2 and repeat the step above - assign a map to the diffuse channel (except this time you will NOT click on the blue/white checker box, since only one map per Material can be displayed in the viewport at a time.

It's Material 1's map that will show up on the object.

To display your material properly in the viewport, you have to add a UVW modifier to the object.

Step 2 - Masking

You've just created two independent materials layered on top of each other and you're happy. However, you want the first material to be shown only at certain places, instead of mixing them evenly everywhere. This is where "masking" comes in.

Select a mask map (mostly it's black and white) and click on "Use curve", as you can see it in a couple of pictures above. Here comes the beauty: start playing with the dials and see what happens.

As you can see this material has a light brown and a very dark brown component. The masking will define what and where will show up. If you click on "Mix amount" instead of "Use curve", Material 1 and Material 2 will be mixed evenly, everywhere.
You can add bump to both materials within the Blend material. You can create some really awesome textures this way.
Good luck and happy trying, I'm sure you will use this a lot once you got a hang of it! It might not sound like such a powerful solution to you at the first sight, but believe me, it can make some people scratch their heads and wonder about how this, or that texture was made... :)

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