[Bf-committers] Idea for textureing method.

[Robert Wenzlaff]

On Thursday 06 January 2005 07:06, Ton Roosendaal wrote:

> I also don't really understand how procedurals go wrong in a direction,  
> most procudurals work very well in 3D. (Unless with directional  
> procedurals like 'wood' or 'marble', but for good looking wood you can  
> use other textures much better).

Well, I am scaling a  texture  in the X more than the Y so it makes long, 
bark-like features.  The problem is, when a branch leaves the trunk it starts 
off horizontal, then curves back to vertical.  The long features of the bark 
now go across the branch instead of along it's length.  Local "Up" always 
needs to be parallel to the long axis of each branch. 

http://www.soylent-green.com/Tree.png

The texmesh feature might work.  But if I have dozens of banches trying to get 
them all pointed "up" would be an editing nightmare.   It's the same problem 
as a complex UV map but now in 3D instead of 2D.

That's why I thought having guide empties to define local changes to the 
texture space would be the way to go.   Each can be independantly edited.  In 
the case of my tree, I would have a few guide empties along the trunk Z up, 
and where a branch left the trunk, an empty with the Z pointing almost 
horizontal (the local axis of the branch).  A texture would blend the two's 
texture spaces so there would be a smooth transition from Z being up, to Z 
being left (in the camera view).   The texture would curve along the branch 
like you would expect.  

You could have weights and max ranges just like bones to control the blending.
The first empty on the list would be the default space for when you were past 
the influence range of the others.  You might want some kind of special mode 
where you  "extrude" empties, like extruding a bone, it parents them to the 
selected empty, and adds it to the list of control empties.
-- 
**********************************************************
 People are always amazed by how much "free time" I have.
They're also amazed that I don't know who Ally McBeal is.

 Frankly, I'm amazed that they can't make the connection.
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Robert Wenzlaff                rwenzlaff at soylent-green.com