OK, I'm working on a ship in Infini-D 4.5. I have run into a problem. I don't understand how to texture map and color map at the same time, the texturing/coloring area in Infini-D is kind of hard to understand. Can someone please help me out?!??
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Hey Andrew, how much do those Karma Sticks cost again?
Well, it depends on your definitions of "texture map" and "color map"...as I define them regarding Infini-D, they are the same thing. If you mean bump maps and texture/color maps, then you need to use composed surfaces.
Without going into a detailed description of how to use the composed texture editor, import your images (assuming you are using images), create a new composed surface, and go from there. Checking "surface" for an image uses it as a color and surface lightness/darkness map, and checking "bump" uses it as a bump map. One layer (or image) can be used for any combination of qualities.
I hope that helped...but next time please try to be a little more specific. 
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Originally posted by Weepul 884:
**Well, it depends on your definitions of "texture map" and "color map"...as I define them regarding Infini-D, they are the same thing. If you mean bump maps and texture/color maps, then you need to use composed surfaces.
Without going into a detailed description of how to use the composed texture editor, import your images (assuming you are using images), create a new composed surface, and go from there. Checking "surface" for an image uses it as a color and surface lightness/darkness map, and checking "bump" uses it as a bump map. One layer (or image) can be used for any combination of qualities.
I hope that helped...but next time please try to be a little more specific.
**
OK, I'll try it and post my results, and I'll be more specific.
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Hey Andrew, how much do those Karma Sticks cost again?
OK, I tried doing what you said but the bumps didn't work. I turned the "surface" off for the bump map(and checked the "bump" box) and left "surface" on for the color map. Any suggestions?
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Hey Andrew, how much do those Karma Sticks cost again?
(This message has been edited by Capt. Editor (edited 05-05-2001).)
Thoughts:
•your bump map isn't applied strongly enough to see
•your bump map is being applied in the wrong way (texturing mode...eg. cylindrical, straight, cubical, etc.)
•you have a layer above it you accidentally set to be a bump map
I can't really tell without actually seeing what you mean, what your setup is.
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Without much more detail as to exactly what you want to do but here goes . . .
You will need to use the 'Composed' form of texture, to do this select the object and go click the texture tab in the main control window. Then click the 'Composed' tab, and click the 'compose' button.
This will bring up the composed texture window, here you have the layer list, and a bunch of controll sliders as well as the mini-rendering preview. Here you want to choose your base color map (this can be a texture or an internal Infini-D surface). The layering goes from top to bottom, meaning which layer is on top. In your case it really does not matter, but I usually stick the bump map on top.
The differnt mapping modes are fairly self explanitory:
• Straight - maps if straight on as you have chosen in the little window, zoom in and strech the image to get it how you want it to fit. Press the little 'i' button to rotate and place teh image numically so you can be accurate, or align it perfectly with on ther one, a VERY usefull feature! Note that this mapping also maps the image straight onto the back side as well.
• Cubical - like straight but does the other 4 faces as well, limited usefulness
• Spherical - not too bad to cover an entire object, but decal is beter.
• Cylindrical - Usefull for cylindrical objects and very little else
• Cylindrical with cap - see above
• Fractal Wrap - no idea . . . never used it, try it some time
• Decal - More difficult to use but the most powerfull. A UV implicit map means it will move the texture with the point it is applied to if you distort the image (think of a bending rope, the texture would need to distort as the rope distorted). The best to use if you want to surface an entire object without distortion.
The little sliders controll what portion of the object is covered, and you can whoose how many times to repeat it both horizontally and vertically. NOTE - you can do this for all other maps also (the Horizontally and Vertical repeating, and is very usefull if you have a small map so that it wont be really crappy looking, so you can repeat it), 0 means infinite repetition.
Getting back to the sliders that go from 0-100% and say: NOTE - for all but surface maps, black = max and white means 0 or minimum level of that attribute.
• Surface - this is the color map, less % means darker, this is what you want your texture to be on 100%
• Bump - this sets the bump map, black is high, white low, but just check the 'invert' box if you made it the wrong way around.
• Highlight - the shinyness of your object, kinda naff really, play with it to add metallicy to your object.
• Transparency - Black = see through, white = opaque, grey = somewhere in between, again you can use invert if you are a moron like me
• Relectiviness - I think you get the picture . . .
• Glow - Ja Baby! Can be usefull for windows and star trek like spot light effects, wonlt make those cool glowng effects like the aura plug for Ray Dream or in LW . . .
In your case you want the color map to have only the surface on 100 and teh bump layer to have only bump checked, change the bump % to make it more of less defined, but look out as too high looks really odd!
You will also notice a 'blend' option, I have not used this much, Weepul knows more about it than me, but it basically controlls the general blending of that layer, like in photoshop. It is also possible to have mulitiple bump maps and stuff, they all get overlayed, but don't overdo it! Start simple!
Alpha mask - One of the mose usefull things ever! Say you wanted to stick a name directly on your hull plating texture, well you can't make a picture that is only lettering, so what you do is you make an alpha channel to your image, make the non- lettering black (you can invert this too in case you or I am wrong, I know its odd, its the opposite of the regular maping no clue why, bozo Metacreations!) and this will now be totally transparent (but not make the section of model transparent like transparency), if you use a grey it will be semi transparent, like the other attributes. I suggest Photoshop or Graphic converter (I use GC) to make the Alphas, experiment, its the best thing I came across in a long time.
This post is 2 miles long, I'm gonna add it to my tutorial site with some pics I guess . . .
Hope this helps! Ask if there is anything else you need help with!
This covers prettymuch everything about how to apply the texture maps and compose surfaces, but there are advanced tecniques that can be used to imensly help a texture, however I need to do it with examples which I will post some other time. Plus I am still working on stuff myself here . . .
- Squinky
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Thank you Squinky!! I will try this tomorrow when I have time to try all of the features you've mentioned(and Infini-D keeps bombing on me because I am pushing my computer to it's limit by running too many programs at once while on the internet). You should add this to your tutorials, it would be very useful. Thank you Squinky and Weepul!!
Kevin
(edit)this post looks tiny compared to squinky's!!!(/edit)
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Hey Andrew, how much do those Karma Sticks cost again?
(This message has been edited by Capt. Editor (edited 05-05-2001).)
