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Plates


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The Plates texture is one of the many procedurally generated textures provided with MODO. Procedural textures are mathematically created at render-time, and therefore have no fixed resolution, they can be magnified nearly infinitely with no visual loss in detail. The Plates texture can be addressed by its two zones, the 'Background' and 'Foreground' colors. The texture will modulate from one zone to the other based on the users settings; each zone can have either a 'Value', or a 'Color' and 'Alpha'. The applied Zone is dependent on the 'Effect' to which the texture will be applied. For instance, if the texture is applied as a 'Displacement', the 'Value' settings would be utilized, whereas setting the texture Effect to 'Diffuse Color' would use the 'Color' and 'Alpha' settings for Background and Foreground. This shader creates a series of rectangular plates which can be used to create textures such as floor tiles or metal armor.
For information regarding adding and working with Shader Tree Items Layers please reference the Shader Tree page of the documentation.

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IMPORTANT: Due to the nature of this procedural, the default 'Solid' projection method produces no result. When applied, users will need to modify the projection in the associated Texture Locator to a different type. To select the Texture Locator press the small ' + ' icon preceding the layer name in the Shader Tree and LMB+click on the layer once revealed. In the Properties panel change the 'Projection Type' to a UV Map (highly recommended) or choose one of the geometric projection, such as 'Planar', 'Cylindrical', 'Spherical', etc. and size the texture accordingly.

Emodo PropertiesLayer--

Enable: Toggles the effect of the layer on and off, duplicating the functionality of toggling visibility in the Shader Tree. When un-checked (disabled), the layer has no effect on the shading of the scene. However, disabled layers are saved with the scene and are persistent across MODO sessions.

Invert: Inverts the RGB values for the layer producing a negative effect.

Blend Mode: Affects blending between different layers of the same effect type, allowing user the ability to stack several layers for different effects. For more on blending, please reference the 'Blend Modes' page of the documentation.

Opacity: Changes the transparency of the current layer. Reducing this value will increasingly reveal lower layers in the shader tree if present, or dim the effect of the layer itself on the surface.

Locator: Most texture layers also have an associated 'Texture Locator' that is automatically created in the 'Item List'. This defines the mapping of the texture (the way it is applied) to the surface. The 'Locator' option sets that association. While users can choose alternate locators, the need to do so will be very rare; still, there are some possible instances where users may want multiple texture items to share a single locator.

Panels - Plates --

Plate Seed: The 'Seed' value is the initial number used when generating the procedural values. Different 'Seed' values will produce different random variations and can be useful in changing the texture result; however, users will want to use the same 'Seed' value when it is necessary for items to retain the same variations.

Plate Disturb: This value determines the amount of distortion among the plates. When the control is at a low value, the plates will be very uniform, with plates sizes having more variation as the parameter is increased.

Plate Distribution: This value determines the percentage of the surface that is covered by plates.

Plate Grout Width: This value determines the amount of grout between the individual plates.

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Plate Bevel Width: This value determines the length of the bevel on the indviudal plates, as measured from the outer edge to the center of the plate.

Size Controls--

U Repeats: This value determines the number of the times the pattern repeats in the U direction (horizontally).

V Repeats: This value determines the number of the times the pattern repeats in the V direction (vertically).

Disturb Controls--
Users can use the 'Disturb' controls to alter the look of the generated procedural. The noise layer will distort the base texture based on the Disturb Magnitude.

Disturb Noise Type: This option determines the look of the texture distortion, with several Noise function types provided:
Perlin-
Enhanced Perlin-
Gradient-
Value-
Gradient Value-
Impulse-
Lattice-
Bubble-

Disturb Octaves: Similar to the Patch Levels setting, the 'Disturb Octaves' value determines the number of layers of noise when distorting the texture, in effect producing greater detail.

Disturb Magnitude: This option determines the strength of the distortion effect on the base procedural.

Disturb Scale: This option determines the size (scale) of the distortion effect on the base procedural.

Disturb Detail: This value determines the step size between each iteration of the noise used to disturb the texture.

Full 3D Distortion: This option turns on Full 3D distortion, which yields better results, but takes longer to render.

Output Controls--

Lower Clip: This value determines a clip level for the Background Color/Value, truncating values beyond the defined setting. Combined with the Upper Clip value, users can apply this option to extend or contract the total range of values for the texture.

Upper Clip: This value determines a clip level for the Foreground Color/Value, truncating values beyond the defined setting. Combined with the Lower Clip value, users can apply this option to extend or contract the total range of values for the texture.

Bias: Increasing this value will cause the texture to favor the foreground color over the background color, whereas decreasing the value causes the background color to be favored.

Gain: The Gain setting is similar to a gamma control that effects the falloff of the gradient ramp between the two color values. Setting the Gain to 100% will create a very sharp falloff effect, whereas setting the value to 0% would create a plateau around the value or color mid-point with sharp falloff on either extreme of the gradient.

Output Regions: When the 'Output Regions' options is enabled, the procedural texture will output random grey shades per region rather than outlines for tiles providing users a means to add random variety to the procedurally created texture. Users can further control the amount of variation using the 'Regional HSV' process layer.

Background Color/Value: This value determines the Color (or Value) of the texture's Background area, which will ramp toward the Foreground Color/Value.

Background Alpha: This value determines the Alpha transparency of the Background Color.

Background - Use Last Layer: When this option is enabled the Background Color area will be completely transparent, revealing the shading results of any lower layers.

Foreground Color/Value: This value determines the Color (or Value) of the texture's Foreground area, which will ramp toward the Background Color/Value.

Foreground Alpha: This value determines the Alpha transparency of the Foreground Color.

Foreground - Use Last Layer: When this option is enabled the Foreground Color area will be completely transparent, revealing the shading results of any lower layers.

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