Render Filters Tutorial
by Brian Hinton
Located in Filters>Render> menu these filters are the starting points of many of my textures. Some dread plating blurred a bit makes a great texture for a starship..and thats just one possiblity. This tutorial will be an overview of the plugin contained in the Render section, all except the Radiant, that is more a seperate application then a filter and would take a few pages by itself.
Ok, lets begin. A note there is a lot of imagery here so give it all time to fully load.
Plasma noise
Iterations:
A high number less noise
A low number more noise
Click go to see something like this:
Bump Toy
note:the image below still has the plasma filter in effect, see below for what bump toy creates, this merely shows the dialog box
Recursive sub-similar to Multi Perlin produces wider noise patterns, could go into the mathematics but thats not what we are teaching, experiment with each type to see what they do
Multi-Perlin-similar to plasma noise, you've probally heard of perlin noise if you've worked in graphics at all
Iterations-same as in Plasma noise, a high number produces less noise, while a low number produces less noise, think TV static
Scale-kind of works like blurring, basically it enlarges what is produced
Gradient index-slide the slider to run through the different gradients available, many effects can be accomplished through using different gradients
Press go to see what happens you should get something similar to this:
Sky
note:the image below still has the bump toy in effect, see below for what sky filter creates, this merely shows the dialog box
Fog color-the color of the fog, fog works like a gradient, starting at the bottom portion and working its way up, it blends with the rest of the image, I think of it less as fog and more as light, its the color coming from the sun
Iterations-amount of blending of the sky patterns, low number, less blending and the seperate colors are more defined, high number, more blending of the patterns
Scale-kind of like flying into the clouds, low number far away, high number you are in the clouds, basically works the same as the other noise filters, magnifies the image
Cloud depth-blends the two gradients, fog and cloud more, high number blends more and a low number less, some interesting effects can be achieved with a high number
Gradient index-slide the slider again to run through the different available gradients (tip:clicking on the gradient itself will bring a popup dialog box allowing you to create your own gradient, this is a later tutorial, but experiment)
Press go to see what happens you should get something similar to this:
Webby
Creates random weblike patterns
Like this:
Dread plating
Why, this makes a dread plating pattern of course! A low number increases the repetitions of the pattern, while a high number...yep you guessed it, decreases the repetitions.
Dread plating at a high number:
Dread plating at a low number:
Well thats it for now. If you have any questions or problems feel free to email me here.
