- Material type
- General settngs
- Texture speed
- Affected by weather
- Brightness
- Emissive
- Transparency
- Reflection
- Roughness
- Refraction IOR
- Bump map
- Parallax occlusion
- Ambient Occlusion
- Specular
You can edit materials in the Material properties dialog. LIVE supports so-called PBR materials, which can be used to enrich material properties with the right textures. The Parallax map can be used to add believable spatial effects to surfaces without adding unnecessary complexity to the model. For projects imported from ARCHLine.XP, LIVE takes over the materials and their properties set in it, making it easier to work with. Editing the material does not change the object itself.
You can download free PBR materials from these websites:
Material type
In LIVE, you can choose between different material types, which determine the list of options available for the material. The General material type provides the most options. For the other options, LIVE will display the material with preset parameters, only the necessary settings are available. General Editing, Texture Speed, Weathering Effect, Clarity, Reflection, Graininess and Surface Unevenness are available for all materials (except for the Metal, Emissive (false) and Emissive (real) materials).
General settings
By typing in the values, you can either modify the material numerically or you can hold down the left mouse button over the value to modify the values, making it easier to align the detail to the right place.
Lateral offset: offset perpendicular to the direction of the texture.
Longitudinal offset: offset in the direction of the texture.
Rotation: rotating the texture on the surface.
Lateral stretching: stretching in a direction perpendicular to the direction of the texture.
Longitudinal stretching: stretching in the direction of the texture.
Texture speed
Lateral and longitudinal movement of the texture can be set with the texture speed function. You can also adjust the texture speed numerically by entering a value, or you can hold down the left mouse button over the value to adjust the value continuously.
This feature provides a creative solution when you want to display a dynamically moving element on the surface. For example, an advertising space or an assembly line, or even a moving walkway.
Affected by weather
For textures, you can set whether the weather shown in LIVE should affect the material. This means that if you turn on rain or snow, the texture will have a wet or snowy surface when the feature is turned on. When turned off, the textured surface is not affected by weather factors.
Brightness
It shows how the material reacts to ambient light. The brightness increases or decreases all the colour components (red, green and blue). In the first (left) box you can specify the texture of the material and in the second (right) box you can select a colour that overrides the texture colours. Use the slider to make the fabric darker or lighter.
Emissive
It can be used to modify the light-emitting properties of materials, so that when it is switched on, the material glows, which also shines on its surroundings. It only casts a real shadow when Raytrace technology is switched on. When setting a texture, the program blends the specified color with the shades of the texture, giving a more realistic result. You can also use the function without specifying a texture, in which case different shades of the selected colour are displayed with the texture pattern. It is practical in cases where you want to show that the material is actually emitting light (such as the surface of a mirror), to illuminate a surface or to artificially light a ceiling.
Transparency
It determines whether the texture is transparent or not, i.e. whether it transmits light or not. By adding a texture, the program automatically sets which areas are transparent and which are not. The darker the pixel on the texture, the more transparent it will be; the lighter the pixel on the texture, the less transparent it will be. In practice, this means that blacks are completely transparent, while whites are not transparent at all.
Reflection
Reflection adjusts the reflectivity of a surface, determining how much light is reflected back from the surface. The higher you set the value, the rougher the surface, so the less light the texture reflects. Reflectance and roughness are settings to be used together.
Roughness
Here you can control the roughness or smoothness of the material surface. Rough materials scatter reflected light in more directions than smooth materials, this adjusts the blur or sharpness of the reflection. A roughness of 0 (smooth) results in a specular reflection, and a roughness of 1 (coarse) results in a diffuse (or matt) surface. For PBR materials, the roughness map for the texture can be adjusted. The rougher a surface is, the less effective its reflective properties.
Refraction IOR
Refraction is the change in light wave direction due to a change in the transmission medium. In other words, when light comes into contact with certain surfaces, such as water or glass, the light is slightly deflected because these surfaces affect the speed at which light passes through them. This optical illusion can be adjusted with this feature.
Bump map
It creates the illusion of 3D surfaces with an adjusted shading calculation without adding more geometry to the surface, so it's much faster to generate than real 3D surfaces. Surface roughness creates the 3D effect by adding highlights and shadows, and as a result, the illusion's sense of realism can be reduced by changing the viewing angle. DX Normal Map texture is used to create it.
Parallax occlusion
This is a tool that enhances the 3D effect of surface uniformity by rendering the 3D image in the field of view based on the white and black shaded image of the texture, so that you can create a fully lifelike 3D texture. In practice, this means that it can produce convincing results even at low viewing angles. When offsetting texture coordinates, it takes into account the angle of view relative to the surface normal. This feature is resource-intensive, so it is recommended to use it only on small surfaces that the camera is close to.
Ambient Occlusion
Ambient occlusion has the ability to darken various surfaces in close proximity to each other. For materials, this is usually used to deepen these details if an AO texture is available to do so. It is recommended to use it as a subtle effect in addition to the usual global illumination, darkening corners, gaps or other features to give a more natural, realistic look.
Specular
When working with a non-metallic material, the reflectivity or more precisely the gloss can be adjusted here. With this function, it is possible to add micro occlusion or small shading, generating a cavity map (usually based on an AO image) with a very short trace distance.
Comments
0 comments
Article is closed for comments.