Home › Blender DTS Exporter 0.97 Documentation Index › DTS Materials

Material Options

Sun, 01/11/2009 - 17:06 — Joseph Greenawalt

TGEA Note: TGEA uses a "material script" system to define material properties instead of using the TGE material properties that are stored internally within a dts file.  The exporter is capable of writing out a TGEA material script that defines TGEA material properties based on the TGE material settings in the exporter GUI.  This option can be found on the General Panel of the exporter user interface.

See Also:

Self Illuminating Materials

Self Illuminating Materials always render at full brightness in Torque.  Materials with the self-illuminating flag are not affected by in-game lighting conditions and appear to glow.

(above: The image on the left shows a material without self-illumination in TGE.  The image on the right shows the same material with "Self Illuminating" turned on in the dts material properties.  Note that the "shadows" being cast by the $ are baked into the texture within Blender and are not generated by TGE.)

Download the self illuminating material example pictured above

See Also:

IFL Materials

The IFL Material option is used to flag a material for use in an IFL material animation. IFL animations consist of a series of images that play back like a movie.  Setting this option for a material will cause the material to become available for use when creating IFL animations on the IFL animation panel of the exporter user interface.

Download the IFL material animation example pictured above

See Also:

Translucent Rendering

Materials that are marked as translucent in the exporter GUI will render as translucent in Torque. The main (diffuse) texture for translucent materials must contain a proper alpha channel. These textures are usually saved in the png file format.

Download the translucent material example pictured above

todo - write about using masks w/ jpegs

Notes:

See Also:

Translucent Additive Rendering

Setting both the translucent and additive rendering options in the material panel of the exporter GUI will cause a texture to be rendered using additive translucent blending in Torque. In this rendering mode, the RGB values for each pixel in the texture are literally added to the RGB values of whatever is behind it. An additive blended texture will therefore be fully transparent when black (color 0,0,0) and fully opaque (white) when white (color 255, 255, 255). There is no need for an alpha channel when using translucent additive materials.

(left - test pattern image without alpha channel, right - test pattern image mapped to a plane with translucent additive dts material as seen in TGE 1.5.2)

Download the translucent additive rendering example pictured above

See Also:

Translucent Subtractive Rendering

Setting both the translucent and subtractive rendering options in the material panel of the exporter GUI will cause a texture to be rendered using subtractive translucent blending in Torque. In this rendering mode, the RGB values for each pixel in the texture are literally subtracted from the RGB values of whatever is behind it. A subtractive blended texture will therefore be fully transparent when black (color 0,0,0) and fully opaque (black) when white (color 255, 255, 255). There is no need for an alpha channel in translucent subtractive textures.

(left - test pattern image without alpha channel, right - test pattern image mapped to a plane with translucent subtractive dts material as seen in TGE 1.5.2)

Download the translucent subtractive rendering example pictured above

See Also:

Mipmapping

The Mipmap button controls whether or not mipmapping is enabled for the currently selected DTS Material. Mipmaps are normally padded with a border. Enabling the Mipmap Zero Border option causes mipmaps to be generated with no border. If neither option is enabled, no mipmaps will be generated or used for the material's textures.

See Also:

SWrap and TWrap flags

The SWrap and TWrap options are used to control the texture wrapping mode for the currently selected DTS Material. Both SWrap and TWrap are enabled by default. The SWrap setting determines whether or not the material's texture(s) repeat when the U/V Coordinates go outside of the image bounds (0.0 to 1.0) horizontally. The TWrap setting determines whether or not the material's texture(s) repeat when the U/V Coordinates go outside of the image bounds (0.0 to 1.0) vertically. Horizontal and vertical refer to the UV map itself, as viewed in Blender's UV/Image editor window, not to the actual orientation of the textures on a mesh.

(from left to right: 1. both SWrap and TWrap enabled, 2. SWrap only, 3. TWrap only, 4. SWrap and TWrap both disabled)

Download the SWrap and TWrap example pictured above

See Also:

Detail Maps

Detail Maps are used to display a more detailed texture on top of the main (diffuse) texture when the camera is close enough. These detail maps are not much use if they are the same size as the main (diffuse) texture, since both textures could be combined in an image editing program to achieve the same effect without necessitating a second rendering pass in the game engine.  The Blender DTS exporter allows a scaling factor to be written out for a detail map, so that the detail map can be tiled at a smaller size than the main diffuse texture.  Unfortunately, stock TGE does not properly wrap the scaled detail map textures.  A fix for the texture wrap issue may be found here (look for my last comment near the bottom of the thread).

(above: a "smiley face" detail map used with several dts materials on a single mesh)

Download the detail map example pictured above

See Also:

Environment Mapping

Enabling the environment mapping option for a given material causes the material to reflect an environment map texture.  Environment mapping causes the material to take on a "chromed" or reflective appearance.  The texture that is "reflected" in-game by an environment mapped material is determined by the seventh texture in the sky .dml file for the currently loaded mission. This texture cannot be set on a per-shape basis.

The screenshots below show a shape with an environment mapped material loaded in Torque showtool pro. The left image shows what the DTS material looks like without an environment map loaded or without environment mapping enabled for the material.  The right image shows what the shape looks like when environment mapping is enabled for the material and an environment map is loaded in Torque Showtool pro.



The amount of reflectivity can be set using the "Reflectivity %" control on the materials panel of the exporter user interface. The amount of reflectance is also modulated by the alpha channel of the DTS material's main (diffuse) texture.  In cases where the alpha channel of the main (diffuse) texture is being used for transparency, the main DTS material's alpha channel may be decoupled from the reflectivity of the environment map through use of a reflectance map.  See the Reflectance Maps section below for more information.

Note: The environment map texture cannot be controlled on a per-dts file basis. The environment map used for all shapes in a mission will be the 7th texture in the mission's sky.dml file.

Download the Environment mapping example pictured above

See Also:

Reflectance Maps

Reflectance maps are used to decouple the reflectivity (see environment mapping above) of a material from the alpha channel of the material's main (diffuse) texture. This is useful in cases where you want to use the alpha channel of the main (diffuse) texture for something else, such as translucency. This option is located in the "Advanced options" section of the materials panel in the exporter GUI.

Some important notes about reflectance maps:

  • If a reflectance map texture is 100% transparent, the shape will render as expected in TGE.
  • If the reflectance map is lacking an alpha channel, or is 100% opaque, the shape will render incorrectly in TGE.
  • If the reflectance map is somewhere between 0% and 100% transparent, it will add to the reflectivity of the entire shape in TGE.
  • While it's tempting to think that you'd be able to use the reflectance map texture's alpha channel to determine the reflectivity over different parts of a material, it doesn't actually work this way in stock TGE. Only one pixel in the reflectance map actually matters: the one in the top left hand corner. The rest of the reflectance map does absolutely nothing.


To summarize:

Don't use the reflectance map option unless you're already using the alpha channel of the main (diffuse) texture for transparency or something else. The only purpose of using a separate reflectance map is to decouple the reflectivity on different parts of the model from the main (diffuse) texture's alpha channel (in cases where you want both transparent areas and environment mapping for the same dts material).

See Also:

Bump Maps

A DTS bump map texture is designed to be used as a fake "embossed" bump map in Torque. Unfortunately, this feature of the dts file format is not supported for DTS shapes in stock TGE. This option can be found under the Advanced controls section of the material panel.

See Also: