'Project Overview Tutorial'

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"Texturing using Blending" by Ferenc J. Haraszti

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 - 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 - 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... :)

 

This image was created using a few of the hundreds of textures from the Total Texture CDs - very comprehensive texture collections priced with the hobbyist in mind. To see more examples, download free
samples and read full details follow this link
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