Creating Materials Arch 100b 2012 Spring
Course	Arch 100b
Date	2012/04/06
Learning Objectives	This session will go over the basics of the different layers that comprise a rendering material, including texture, transparency, bump and environment. We will go through how to adjust the settings of a VRay Material using the Material Editor to load existing settings, editing them, or creating new settings.
Agenda	Mid-Review Recap Overview of material components Texture maps Transparency maps Bump maps Environment maps Attributing or Editing VRay Layers Diffuse Reflection Refraction Emissive When to render a material vs. when to add the material in photoshop Online Sources of Materials
Uses Tool(s)	VRay , Rhinoceros

Rendering Materials

Materials can be attributed to both layers as well as individual objects by using the Material Editor. Materials can be made up of different layer attributes (such as texture, transparency, bumps, etc) in effort to not read more than a flat text mapping. Sometimes these layers depend on a value (such as intensity or a percentage of transparency) while other times they come from a gray-scale image.

You can quickly view what these materials look like by changing the view to Rendered View which offers a simplified version of the texture maps on the object. However many of the details will change once you actually render the image so it is important to test render throughout the process to check your work.

Rendering Inspiration: The Third & The Seventh

In Rhino, the Material Editor involves the following :

• Color
• Gloss Color : Highlight color
• Texture : Maps an image file onto the surface
• Transparency : Maps a gray-scale image as a pattern of transparency onto the surface
• Bump maps : Maps a surface texture (bumps) onto the surface without actually affecting the geometry of the surface (the NURBS surface itself does not change).
• Environment maps : Maps an image that is reflected onto the surface

Attributing or Editing VRay Layers

Each rendering engine likely has a separate material editor with similar layer properties for each material. For best results, with the rendering engine properties because they likely work best with the other settings.

Each VRay Material consists of the following:

• Diffuse

Color : Change the overall color of an object OR texture map an image onto the an object by selecting the "m" box.

Transparency : Change the overall transparency of an object OR map a transparency pattern onto the object. Black is completely opaque and white is completely transparent.

• Reflection

Reflection : Adds reflection to the object. White is completely reflective (like a mirror) and black is non-reflective. The default setting is set to Fresnel which caters to the camera view (notice the capital M next to the Reflection layer). To make more reflective, increase the Fresnel IOR.

• Refraction - important for transparent materials

Transparency - the darker the Refraction Transparency, the more the material references the edges of the objection (although transparent).

Fog Color - use this rather than Refraction Color to change the color of the transparent material. Fog color is dependent upon the multiplier, the color and the size of the object. Be sure to pick a color that is slightly less saturated that you desire.

Glossiness helps change the frostiness of the transparent material. The lower the number, the more blurry the refraction.

IOR (Index of Refraction) calculated the light refracted from the tranparent object. Lowering the IOR decreases the intensity of the Refraction settings.

• Emissive

Changes the object to become an emitter. Change the intensity to affect how bright the light source becomes.

Default setting options:

• Bump Map

Changes the way the surface texture appears three-dimensionally, changes the surface normal to create the illusion of surface detail.

• Displacement Map

Actually changes the way the surface appears three-dimensionally (such as outlines and edges of the surface) to represent a textured surface

Rendering vs. Photoshop

The purpose of renders and perspective drawings is to make help the viewer understand the spatial qualities of the design. Sometimes texture mapping using a rendering program can be really helpful in showing the realistic qualities of light and materality within a digital model - but there is also a potential for the texture mapping to flatten the space. Texture mapping every detail within the digital model can also become a quick time trap.

Another way of texture mapping is in post processing : Photoshop. Trees and people are a great example of something that we typically do not 3d model but add later on in the image. Other examples may be other elements of context (signage, neighboring buildings) as well as complex materials (water, grass).

Workflow 11

Creating Composite Materials Using Image-Maps in Vray.

Exercise 11

Texture Mapping the De Young in VRay.

Online Sources of Materials

Render Textures : A great collection of texture map ensembles. Each material consists of different matching material maps (such as diffuse, bump, displacement, transparency). This is a good place to go if you want to create your own material from scratch.

Flying Architecture : VRay for Rhino Materials : This website has some good materials for free download, such as concrete, wood and glass. Be sure to save the whole unzipped folder in an easy to find location.

VRay Water Material : A sample VRay Water .visopt for download. For best application, be sure to have caustics on (under VRay Options).