Textures

The Textures command opens the Textures panel that creates textures that can be dragged and dropped onto Materials and Environments controls.

Note

• Any number of textures can be stored in the model. Textures can also be designed in-place in the material and environment editors by adding textures as child. Opening a floating preview allows visualization of the texture during its development.
• Lower-level procedural textures such as Perturbing, Noise, and Waves allow the design of complex new procedural textures. The high-level textures (Wood, Marble, etc.) are made by combining lower-level components.
• Textures can be assigned as children to many other content types. The texture list (shown in the Texture Editor) is typically used as a palette of stored ready-to-use textures.
• Specifies the color, finish, transparency, texture, and bump for use by the built-in Rhino renderer.

Textures panel

Panel options

Textures panel toolbar

The Textures panel has additional browsing tools.

Menu

Displays the Tools menu.

Help

Preview thumbnail actions

• Right-click a thumbnail to display a context menu.
• Right-click the blank area of the thumbnail browser to display a context menu.
• Double-click to display a larger preview window.
• Double-click the large preview to open a floating window that can be re-sized to get a higher resolution view of the preview.
  This window has all the same functionality as the original preview image including the context menu and the ability to drag and drop onto other materials or objects in the model.
• Right-click the large preview window or the floating preview window to display the context menu.
• Information entered to the Notes section appears in the tooltip when you mouse-over the thumbnail.

Drag and drop actions in the list section

• Drag and drop to a different position in the list to reorder.
• Drag and drop with Ctrl to a blank area to make a copy.
• Drag and drop with Alt to a blank area to make an instanced copy.

Creating and editing textures

To create a new texture

1. In the thumbnail browser, click the Create New Texture button .
2. On the menu, select a texture type.
3. Sub-panels containing the settings for that texture type appear in the Textures panel.

Import Texture from File

Imports materials from a saved Rhino .rtex file.

Type

Specifies the texture type.

Types

2D Checker 3D Checker Bitmap Blend Crosshatch Bump Cube Map Dots Exposure fBm Gradient Granite Grid Grit Bump

Hatch Bump High Dynamic Range Leather Grain Bump Marble Mask Noise Perlin Marble Perturbing Physical Sky Projection Changer Resample Simple Bitmap Simple Dot Bump

Single Color Speckle Bump Stucco Texture Adjustment Tile Turbulence Waves Wood

More types...

Opens the content type browser to see more options for creating a new texture.

Texture settings

Each texture type has its own set of settings appropriate for the type.

In addition to the settings specific to the texture type, the following settings sub-panels appear when appropriate.

Name

The name of the texture.

Colors

This setting displays whenever colors can be specified for the texture components.

Context menu options

Edit

Opens the Bitmap Texture Settings panel.

Copy

Copies the image to the clipboard.

Paste

Pastes the image in the clipboard into the texture slot.

Paste as Instance

Pastes the image in the clipboard as an instance. Changes to the parent image also change the instances.

Floating Preview

Opens a floating thumbnail preview of the texture.

Change

Select a different image or texture type.

Remove

Removes the texture from the slot.

Remove Instancing

Removes the instancing, breaking the connection to the original parent image.

Properties

Opens the Properties dialog box for setting the output channel.

Properties

Output Channel

Swap colors

Exchanges colors 1 and 2 for each other.

Super sample

Tries to reduce aliasing in the texture.

See: Wikipedia, Supersampling.

You can drag the color swatch to a folder to create a Rhino color file.

Mapping for 3-D textures

Determines how colors at the original uv(w) coordinates of the texture are translated to the uv location on an object. The Rhino default is to use the uv coordinates given by the geometry itself: either the parameters of the surface or the original texture coordinates of the mesh. These controls allow modification of the way the texture appears to wrap itself around objects.

Offset U/V/W

Shifts the texture along the u and/or v direction in texture space.

Repeat U/V/W

Causes the texture to recur in texture space.

Rotation U/V/W

Rotates the texture in texture space by a specific number of degrees.

WCS

UV coordinates are generated from the actual position in world space of the object. This is useful for real-world size materials - especially 3‑D procedural textures.

Mapping Channel

Uses the texture coordinates of that object on a specific mapping channel. By default, with a single mapping channel in use on an object, the texture coordinates will be generated from values found in Object Properties > Texture Mapping.

Preview in 3D

Uses a 3-D object in the thumbnail and preview window to display the mapping on an object. See: Textures panel thumbnail context menu.

Preview local mapping

If this checkbox is on, texture previews will be modified by the mapping parameters. This can make it difficult to see the texture itself, if there is a high repeat, for example.

Display in Viewport

Displays the results of mapping a texture when that texture is not well displayed in the viewport. The texture is displayed temporarily as if it were the object color. This can be useful with advanced rendering engines where the viewport display does not support a particular rendering feature that can be textured (for example, reflectivity).

Mapping for 2-D textures

Determines how colors at the original uv(w) coordinates of the texture are translated to the uv location on an object. The Rhino default is to use the uv coordinates given by the geometry itself: either the parameters of the surface or the original texture coordinates of the mesh. These controls allow modification of the way the texture appears to wrap itself around objects.

Offset U/V

Shifts the texture along the u and/or v direction in texture space.

Repeat U/V

Causes the texture to recur in texture space.

Rotation

Rotates the texture in texture space by a specific number of degrees.

No repeat

Only one instance of the texture will be seen on the object.

Environment map

Projects the image using similar mapping to the EMap command, while allowing for other input projections to be used.

Screen

Uses the flat 2‑D screen coordinates of the object (where 0,0 is the top left corner and 1,1 is the bottom right) to determine the texture uv. This is often used in conjunction with a background image to cause the colors on an object to match the background.

WCS

UV coordinates are generated from the actual position in world space of the object. This is useful for real-world size materials - especially 3‑D procedural textures.

WCS (box style)

UV coordinates are generated from a coordinate system specified by the world space location on the object and the side of an imaginary box pointed to by the object’s normal at that location. This is useful for real-world style materials, particularly 2‑D types like bitmaps, since the sides of objects will also be projected in a meaningful manner.

Mapping Channel

Uses the texture coordinates of that object on a specific mapping channel. By default, with a single mapping channel in use on an object, the texture coordinates will be generated from values found in Object Properties > Texture Mapping.

Preview local mapping

Texture previews will be modified by the mapping parameters. This can make it difficult to see the texture itself, if there is a high repeat, for example.

Display in Viewport

Displays the results of mapping a texture when that texture is not well displayed in the viewport. The texture is displayed temporarily as if it were the object color. This can be useful with advanced rendering engines where the viewport display does not support a particular rendering feature that can be textured (for example, reflectivity).

Graph

The graph control displays the color values at particular sections from the uv space of the texture. This can be useful when the color values are used to calculate parameters in non-color slots, such as bump, transparency.

Red

Shows the value of the red component of the texture.

Green

Shows the value of the green component of the texture.

Blue

Shows the value of the blue component of the texture.

Alpha

Shows the value of the alpha component of the texture.

Luminance

Shows the combined luminance of the texture (calculated using the CIE standard method from the red, green and blue channels). This calculates non-color values such as transparency and bump.

U

Shows a section through the specified u parameter of the texture.

V

Shows a section through the specified v parameter of the texture.

W

Shows a section through the specified w parameter of the texture.

Output Adjustment

Allows the modification of the texture output with some common transformations.

2D Checker Texture

The 2D Checker texture is a planar texture that does provides a checker pattern in only two directions.

Checker Texture Settings

Remap textures to tile size

Causes child textures to be re-sized to fit into an individual checker.

3D Checker Texture

The 3D Checker texture is a 3-D pattern. Sub textures can be set to each of the colors of the texture, and their u, v, and w can be re-mapped to the scale of the checker pattern.

Checker Texture Settings

Remap textures to tile size

Causes child textures to be re-sized to fit into an individual checker.

Bitmap Texture

The Bitmap texture contains a simple bitmap image. You can also specify a transparent color to be used as an alpha channel in the case that no alpha channel is specified in the image.

Bitmap Texture Settings

Image preview and properties

Preview image

Size in pixels

Color depth

Image size

File size

Mirror alternate tiles

Mirrors every other tile to allow easier edge matching on non-repeatable bitmaps.

Enable filtering

When multiple points on the surface are mapped to the same point in the texture the image can be "pixelated," displaying jagged lines and stair-stepped transitions between colors in the texture. Filtering smooths those transitions. In most cases the pixelation is smoothed out but if a very small texture is mapped to a very large surface the filtering tends to make things look blurry.

Enable filtering off (left) and on (right).

Filename

The path and name of the bitmap file.

Open image in associated editor

Opens the image in your assigned image editor (Paint, PaintShop, or similar).

Color mask

Blend Texture

The Blend texture is a simple color blending between two textures.

Blend Texture Settings

Factor

Blends Colors 1 and 2 using an amount of blend.

Texture

Blends Colors 1 and 2 using the luminance values of a texture.

Crosshatch Bump

Cube Map Texture

The Cube Map texture takes six individual images arranged as separate cube map face images, and produces a linear cube map texture. This texture can then be converted into any other projection using the projection changer texture.

See: Wikipedia: Cube Mapping

Cube Map Settings

Positive / Negative X / Y / Z

The texture to use at each face of the cube.

Dots Texture

The Dots texture generates a random dot pattern. Sub-textures can be set for the dot color and the background color.

Sampler

Specifies the algorithm used to distribute the dots in space.

Sampler type

#of dots

The approximate number of dots in the pattern.

Pattern size

Determines how far apart dots are generated. It operates like zooming in and out, but as you zoom in, more dots appear to keep the number of dots as close as possible to the #of dots value.

Dot Style

The Dot Style settings specify the way the dot merges into its background. These settings work well with bump mapping.

Fall off type

The fall-off type describes the shape of the dot when used as a bump map.

Radius

Specifies the radius of the dots.

Variance

Specifies a level of randomization for the radius.

Rings

Makes the dot into a ring with a variable size hole.

Dot Appearance

The Dot Appearance settings specify how the dot interacts with the background.

Composition type

Specifies how the two dot colors are composited.

Amplitude

This is the amount of the dot effect. When used as a color, it affects the brightness of the dot. When used as a bump map, it affects the depth of the bumps.

Hue

Normally the dots are colored according to the value of Color 2. This setting allows the color hue to randomly vary.

Saturation

Normally the dots are colored according to the value of Color 2. This setting allows the color saturation to randomly vary.

Exposure Texture

The Exposure texture takes high-dynamic-range information and converts it to a low-dynamic-range image using the same exposure algorithms used in the high-dynamic-range texture.

Exposure Texture Settings

Input

Add the high-dynamic range (HDR) texture whose exposure you want to control.

Exposure

Changes the exposure of the HDR texture. It decides the part of the HDR dynamic range is mapped to the pixel range (0 to 255).

Multiplier

A scale factor that multiplies the final pixel color before it is displayed. The pixel color is then clamped to the range 0 to 255.

fBm Texture

The fractal Brownian motion (fBm) texture is a standard computer graphics noise type where the noise is superimposed upon itself at different scales and amplitudes. So the closer you look, the more detailed the pattern is. A basic continuous noise function for bump maps based on Perlin noise. fBm is a variation on Perlin noise with either Fractal Sum synthesis. Textures can be set to the two colors in the noise function.

Similar effects are possible using the more complex but much more powerful Noise texture.

See: Wikipedia: Perlin noise.

fBm Texture settings

Roughness

The amplitude change between octaves.

Maximum octaves

The maximum number of super-impositions. This relates to the amount of detail in the noise.

Gain

A standard way of modifying the output of textures from linear to exponential.

Gradient Texture

The Gradient texture provides predefined gradient types along with custom curve support. Textures can be set to the two colors of the gradient.

Gradient Texture Settings

Gradient type

Specifies the way the colors combine.

Linear	Box	Radial
Tartan	Sweep	Pong
Spiral

Flip alternate gradients

Custom curve

Opens the Custom Curve panel.

Custom Curve

Graph

Drag points on the graph to reset the curves.

Add

Adds edit points with handles to a curve.

Delete

Deletes edit points from a curve.

Select All

Selects all active curves.

Channel Buttons

Red

Green

Blue

Alpha

Reset Display

Resets the thumbnail.

Reset Graph

Resets the graph to the default settings.

Enlarge

Opens the panel as a free-standing control.

Granite Texture

The Granite texture is a spotted 3-D texture. The granite procedure combines a randomly distributed spot component in a base component.

Granite Texture Settings

Size

The overall size of the texture.

Spot size

The size of the spots.

Blending

The amount of blending between the base color and the spot color.

Grid Texture

The Grid texture uses a numbered grid bitmap as the texture.

Grid Texture Settings

Cells

The number of squares.

Font thickness

The size of the font used to number the grid squares.

Grit Bump Texture

Hatch Bump Texture

High Dynamic Range

A High-Dynamic-Range (HDR) texture provides automatic conversion to a bitmap for non-HDR capable renderers. This allows the Rhino renderer and viewport display to show HDR environments. The HDR texture also provides projection conversion features. Most HDRi files come as light probe projection.

See: www.easyhdr.com/examples.

High-Dynamic Range Texture Settings

Preview

Image and file properties.

Filename

The path and name of the HDR.

Original projection

Output projection

Azimuth / Altitude

Modify the way the image is rotated in space during the projection conversion.

HDR multiplier

A simple linear multiplier on all values in the image. This can be used to brighten or dim the image in an HDR capable renderer.

Save As

Converts the image to a bitmap file.

Leather Grain Bump Texture

Marble Texture

Creates alternating slabs of base and vein components.

Marble Texture Settings

Size

The overall size of the texture

Vein width

The fraction of the distance from one base stripe to the next. Values range from 0 for no Vein component to 1 for no base component.

Blur

Blurs the edges of the veins.

Noise

Adds noise to the texture.

Mask Texture

The Mask texture creates a grayscale image from a specific component of an input texture. This is useful for creating textures suitable for non-color uses (like transparency, or bump). It is even more useful for calculating a mask from only a single component. It is most commonly used to extract the alpha channel from an input texture.

Mask Texture Settings

Source texture

The texture to be used as input.

Mask type

The texture component to be used as the output.

Noise Texture

The noise texture is a general purpose procedural texture for creating many types of coherent or partially coherent multi-octave noise. The texture is very useful as a building block for other procedural types, but can also be used on its own for non-repeating bump patterns or random variations in color.

Noise Texture Settings

Perlin Marble Texture

A simple Perlin marble texture implementation.

See: Wikipedia: Perlin noise.

Perlin Marble Texture Settings

Size

Sets the size of the marble pattern.

Color 1 Sat:

Sets the saturation level of Color 1.

Color 2 Sat:

Sets the saturation level of Color 2.

Levels

Sets the number of times the turbulence algorithm is applied. The higher the value, the more complicated the marble pattern.

Noise

Adds noise to the texture.

Blur

Blurs the edges of the veins.

Perturbing Texture

The perturbing texture takes a source texture, and a texture that controls the perturbation of the source; generally a Noise or fBm texture although anything will work.

Perturbing Texture Settings

Texture

The source texture.

Perturbing texture

The texture that controls the perturbation of the source.

Amount

Adjusts the strength of the perturbing texture.

Physical Sky Texture

Creates a texture based on the appearance of the sky based on date, time, and location settings.

Physical Sky Texture Settings

Use document sun

Uses the settings from the Sun panel.

Year

Specifies the date. As you move the slider or enter a date in the edit box, the texture dynamically updates to reflect the change. The slider bar colors indicate the relative brightness of the sun at the specified date.

Time

Specifies the time. As you move the slider or enter a time in the edit box, the texture dynamically updates to reflect the change. The slider bar colors indicate the relative brightness of the sun at the specified time.

Now

Sets the time and date from your computer’s clock.

Map

Specifies the location and the Time Zone on Earth which is typically set from the closest city to the selected location.

• Click and drag the map to pan.
• Pick a location on the map.
  The cursor jumps to the nearest city.

City list

Sets the location from a city list.

Here

Sets the time to the current system location.

Find place

Specifies a city in the city list.

Lat

Specifies the location's latitude.

Long

Specifies the location's longitude.

Time zone

Specifies the location's time zone.

Show sun

Shows the sun in the texture.

Sun off (left) and on (right).

Sun size

The size of the sun in the rendered image.

Sun large (left) and small (right).

Sun brightness

The brightness of the sun.

Sun coronal color

The color of the sun's corona (halo around the sun).

Atmospheric density

The denser the atmosphere, the larger the Sun will appear because the atmospheric density acts as a magnifier.

Light scattering

How much the light particles spread out and how fast. This is similar to the way refraction works through transparent materials. As the sun approaches the horizon, the light scatters more and at a faster rate the lower it gets because you are looking through a thicker slice of the atmosphere, which causes the light to scatter more. Higher values cause the sun to appear more red.

Particle scattering (haze)

Affects the results when the Sun is low on the horizon. Higher numbers cause thicker (smoggier) air. More particles “scatter” as the Sun approaches the horizon causing a greater effect (sunset, sun size, color distribution, etc...).

Light wavelengths

Attempts to model how wavelengths of light are diffused and refracted through our atmosphere. The settings represent the physical wavelengths of the primary colors. The default values are the physically correct values for our atmosphere (Earth). However, these values do not define the color of the sky, but rather how light interacts within the atmosphere due to its wavelengths using Rayleigh and Mie scattering models.

Exposure

Multiplies the overall intensity. Brighter areas will become more intense than darker areas.

Projection Changer Texture

The projection changer texture converts a texture or image from one type of projection to another. The options available are the same as for the HDR image and cover most forms of texture projection. This can be very useful for conversion of environment maps.

Projection Changer Texture Settings

Input

Original projection

See: Environment Editor, Projection.

Output projection

See: Environment Editor, Projection.

Azimuth/Altitude

Modify the way the image is rotated in space during the projection conversion.

Resample Texture

The Resample texture takes an input texture and divides it into pixels. The color of these pixels is determined by sampling the colors from the input texture. Fewer samples may result in noisy pixelation, especially on noisy input textures, but will be quicker.

It also has features for smooth interpolation between the pixel centers, and blurring controls. The re-sample texture is especially useful for creating blurred or pixelated versions of other textures, particularly procedural textures or HDR textures which cannot be easily blurred in an image editing package.

Resample Texture Settings

Simple Bitmap Texture

Mirror alternate tiles

Mirrors every other tile to allow easier edge matching on non-repeatable bitmaps.

Enable filtering

When multiple points on the surface are mapped to the same point in the texture the image can be "pixelated," displaying jagged lines and stair-stepped transitions between colors in the texture. Filtering smooths those transitions. In most cases the pixelation is smoothed out but if a very small texture is mapped to a very large surface the filtering tends to make things look blurry.

Enable filtering off (left) and on (right).

Filename

The path and name of the bitmap file.

Open image in associated editor

Opens the image in your assigned image editor (Paint, PaintShop, or similar).

Simple Dot Bump Texture

Single Color Texture

The Single Color texture acts as a placeholder for either a color or a sub-node texture. It can be useful in situations where you want to instance colors across many materials or textures.

Single Color Texture Settings

Color 1

Texture slot

Click to use a texture.

Super sample

Performs a basic randomized multi-sampling of the texture. This can help with moiré effects in sub-pixel ray sampling

Use object color

The texture uses the wire color of the object being rendered instead of its own color. This means you can have a single Basic Material with this texture in the Color slot and each object using that material will be colored according to its Display Color attribute.

Shaded view (left); Rendered view with texture and Use object color and
Noise texture (right).

Speckle Bump Texture

Stucco Texture

The Stucco texture generates a simple surface pattern useful for creating the effect of a stuccoed surface using bump mapping.

Stucco Texture Settings

Size

Controls the size of the bumps. Increasing this value appears to zoom in on the texture.

Thickness

Controls the thickness of the bumpy areas. Higher values create more detail in the bumps.

Threshold

Controls how pronounced the bumps are. Lower values make the texture more bumpy. Higher values smooth the texture out and show fewer bumps. A value of 1 makes the texture completely smooth.

Texture Adjustment Texture

The Texture Adjustment Texture provides a set of color and geometry adjustment settings that are applied to the child texture. The settings are much as the same as the adjustment section available for most textures.

Texture Adjustment Texture Settings

Tile Texture

Tile textures are repeating patterns of color or texture or both.

Tile Texture Settings

Tile geometry

Specifies the tile pattern.

Joint width U/V/W

Specifies the width of the joint color in each u,v, w direction.

Phase shift U/V/W

The offset in tile space between each row or column of tiles (for each of the axes in u, v, and w). This is used to create brick-like patterns (where, for a simple stretcher bond, the u‑phase shift is 0.5).

Without phase shift (left), horizontal phase shift (center), vertical phase shift (right).

Turbulence Texture

The Turbulence texture creates a simplified partially coherent noise texture.

Similar effects are possible using the more complex but much more powerful Noise texture. Turbulence is a variation of Perlin noise Turbulence spectral synthesis.

See: Wikipedia: Perlin noise.

Turbulence Texture Settings

Roughness

A measure of the contrast between noise levels.

Maximum octaves

The levels of fractal detail in the noise algorithm.

Gain

A simple adjustment to increase and decrease contrast and brightness.

Waves Texture

The waves texture produces grayscale strips with a sine wave value curve in either a linear or radial pattern.

Waves Texture Settings

Type

Contrast In

The steepness of the sine wave on the negative u side of the texture (1.0 is linear).

Contrast Out

The steepness of the sine wave on the positive u side of the texture (1.0 is linear).

Spacing

The distance in texture units between the waves.

Wood Texture

The Wood texture consists of concentric cylinders of alternating Base and Ring components. The Wood procedure defines how the Base and Ring components combine.

The method used to create wood materials depends on how close it will be viewed.

If the viewpoint is not close to the wood, a solid color can take the place of wood without sacrificing image quality. This allows faster rendering.

Wood Texture Settings

Grain thickness

The thickness of the wood grain. The thicker the grain, the more Color 2 affects the result and the less Color 1 does.

Radial noise

The amount of random variation in the grain. A value of zero makes the grain perfectly smooth. Higher values cause a more pronounced random variation in the grain.

Axial noise

Provides further random variation in the grain. This setting only has an effect when viewing the texture in 3‑D with WCS on and when Radial noise is greater than zero.

Blur 1

Controls the amount of blurring on the inner edge of the grain.

Blur 2

This controls the amount of blurring on the outer edge of the grain.

Save and share render content

Render content (materials, environments, and textures) are stored in models. They can also be saved to files and shared across models. The Libraries panel displays the default content folder. Content can be dragged and dropped between Rhino sessions or between a Rhino window and a disk folder.

The DownloadLibraryTextures command runs through the entire list of materials in the material library and downloads all of the required bitmap files from the Rhino server to the local computer. After that, any material can be used from the library without being online.

See also

Environments

Materials

Render

Snapshots