Using arroway textures in Nxt

[Alejandro Testa]

Hi guys, I just want to know how to configure the use of arroway textures. I hear about scaling down the material in 75 %.   When I charge the three different maps in NXt. How I use them? Which configuration for each  one  (b -d and r)?

Did I use directly the png file or I have to use a jpg file?

 

Thanks in advance

 

Alejandro

 

 

[Roy Hirshkowitz]

If you use the Texture Set material template to get started it will be much easier-- it should automatically get many of the map settings correct for Arroway.

The commercial Arroway textures can be very large (hi-res)-- much larger than required for most applications. You can go into PhotoShop or Gimp and save scaled down versions.  Keep the names the same or similar so the Texture Set still works. 

[Kevin Lockwood]

Roy, Just curious how this works. Does it read the file titles and use that data, or some embedded exif data? Would be good to know for home brew material sets.

[Alejandro Testa]

Thanks Roy. But they need to be png files or I have to save them as jpg?

[Roy Hirshkowitz]

For color images you can use either one.  For grayscale, I would probably use png.

[Jorge Javier Lara Domínguez]

es mejor el png? podrias explicar por qeu Roy? Saludos

 

[Roy Hirshkowitz]

Neither one is "better" than the other.

png uses a "lossless" compression algorithm.  This means that after the file is decompressed it is identical to the original.  jpg, on the other hand, uses a "lossy" compression algorithm which allows you to trade quality for (much) higher compression ratios.  png files are almost always larger.  Professional photographers who do a lot of editing prefer png type compression, since their photos will not be subject to progressive degradation due to repeated cycles of compression and decompression.  However, one cycle of jpg compression decompression-- what you would be doing in the Arroway case-- is almost impossible to detect at higher quality levels.  I use jpg frequently and never have a problem with it.  Jpg frames should never be used for animation, the compression artifacts will be unstable frame to frame.

I suggested png for grayscale images since there is a more established standard on how to save these particular types of images-- although I doubt you'll really have any problems using jpg.

[Jorge Javier Lara Domínguez]

Gracias Roy, como siempre por tu pronta respuesta.

[Alejandro Testa]

In every ar.material  I need to load in the texture set the three  textures b-d and r?

 

 

I am trying to understand how this work.

 

Thanks again.

 

[akinlolu olugboji]

In Nxt UI on the material tab, select the new material button and choose Texture set.

A brower pops up and you navigate to the location of the maps and select all three or two as the case maybe.

Click open brings you back to the ME, and chose Advance and the channel tab to see that the settings are ok.

For the colour or diffuse map the colour channel is checked.

Bump map (displacement or normal mapps) colour and transparent colour are grayed out

Specular maps specular intensity is checked.

 The rest is upto you.

[akinlolu olugboji]

It should also be noted that at times for the bump maps the colour and transparent be selcted but not grayed out. I am yet to know the reason for this.

@ Kevin Lockwood my own home brew texture set are usually via Crazybump, and the above method works well.

[akinlolu olugboji]

I must say via the standalone ME i do not record the same success as I have to set all the channels correctly myself as the colur and transparent colour is checked in the channel tab for all texture, inrespectively of it being colour(diffuse), bump (displacement or normal) and specular maps.

[Alejandro Testa]

Hi again, one more question. Which is the best aproach to scale  the arroway maps in PS?

1.  Reduce vales in pixels (height and  width)

2. Reduce document size (height and width)

3.  Save as, and select image quality (maximum, high, medium, low)

 

I think is the third one so we d´ont loose the  original image size. I am wrong?

 

Also another issue.  when you create the texture set in the ME, you need to check the scale  of the maps, to be the same as the original that appears in  arroway pdf catalog?

Thanks again.