Materials – BricsCAD Centro Assistenza

Creates and edits materials used for renderings through the Drawing Explorer dialog box.

Note: Materials provided by RedWay () cannot be edited initially and so their settings are greyed-out, except for Map Transformation. To edit these materials, right-click a Redway material, and then choose Convert to regular material from the context menu.

Accessing the Command

command bar: materials
aliases: mat, finish, rmat

menu bar: Tools | Drawing Explorer | Materials
View | Rendering | Materials

toolbar: Rendering|

: Materials

Displays the Materials section of the Drawing Explorer dialog box:

Command Options

Materials Toolbar Option	Description
New	Creates a new material: Click New. Name the material. (Optional) Fill out the Description field.
Delete	Deletes selected material(s). The Global material cannot be deleted.

Preview Options	Description
Cube	Displays a preview of the selected material applied to a cube.
Cylinder	Displays a preview of the selected material applied to a cylinder.
Sphere	Displays a preview of the selected material applied to a sphere.
Light Intensity	Sets the light intensity in the Preview window: Drag the slider Click before or after the slider

Edit Material Option	Description
Name	Type a name for the material. The material name must be unique. The Global material cannot be renamed.
Description	Type a description for the material. The material description is optional.

Color Option	Description
Diffuse Ambient	Sets the diffuse and ambient color: Check the Inherit option to apply the entity color Click the colored tile, then choose the color in the Color dialog box
Highlights	Sets the highlight property of the material: Click the Highlights droplist Choose either Non-Metallic or Metallic
Glossiness Transparency Refraction Index Self-Illumination Reflectivity	Defines a property of the material surface: Drag the slider Click before or after the slider Type the desired value in the settings field Glossiness - range = 0 - 100 Transparency - range = 0 - 100 Refraction Index - range = 1.00 - 3.00 Self-Illumination - range = 0 - 100 Reflectivity - range = 0 - 100
Maps Option	Description
Maps	Texture maps add detail to a surface, which is not included in the 3D model itself. To apply a texture map: Turn on the Diffuse, Transparency and/or Bump Map options. Do one of the following: Select Wood or Marble from the Texture Map option button Choose Texture Map, then press the Browse button () and select a texture bitmap file (). Set the Blend factor* for the texture map: Diffuse and Transparency maps: range = 0 to 100 Bump map: range = -1000 to 1000 Use the slider or type the factor in the settings field. The Blend factor sets the intensity of the texture map. () The TextureMapPath user preference defines the search path for texture map images. In the BricsCAD program folder exist three subfolders under Textures* , each containing a number of texture files of the same name. Images in folder 1 have a size of 256 x 256 pixels, folder 2 contains images of 512 x 512 pixels, images in folder 3 have a size of 1024 x 1024 pixels. If the Diffuse map setting of a material uses the image name only (not path), you can control the quality of a rendered image by setting the TextureMapPath user preference to folder 1 , 2 or 3 .
Diffuse Map	Diffuse maps apply a texture to the surface of a material such as wood grains, bricks or tiles. Drag the slider to blend the texture map with the Color settings.
Transparency Map	The selected Texture Map can be applied as Transparency Map or as Cutout Map. In the examples below, this image is used as transparency map and cutout map: If Transparency Map is selected, the selected Texture Map image defines a transparency map. The image is recommended to be a grayscale image. White pixels will be invisible, black pixels will be opaque and gray pixels will be transparent. Colored images are converted to grayscale images in the background. The meaning of black and white is the inverse of Cutout Map textures. The alpha channel of the image is ignored. Blend factor: the transparency values in the texture will approach the scalar Transparency setting as the blend factor approaches 0. This means that if the Blend factor is 100, then the transparency value will controlled completely by the Texture Map image. If the Blend factor is 0, the transparency texture will be completely ignored and the scalar Transparency value will be used. If Cutout Map is selected, then the selected transparency map defines cutouts: parts of the objects will be fully visible and parts not visible at all, depending on the pixels of the selected image. The image is recommended to be a bitonal black-and-white image, without grays. White pixels are visible, and black pixels are invisible. The Cutout Map Inverted option inverts the effect: visible parts become invisible and vice versa. Gray scale and color images are converted to black-and-white images in the background. The meaning of black and white is the inverse of Transparency Map textures. The alpha channel of the image is ignored.
Bump Map	Bump mapping is a technique for simulating bumps and wrinkles on the surface of an object. The result is an apparently bumpy surface although the surface of the underlying object is not modified. Blend factor range = -1000 / +1000 Left: Diffuse Map only; Right: Bump Map applied.

Map Transformation
Scale	The texture map image is applied at a size of 1 drawing unit multiplied by the Width and Height factors. E.g. if the Width and Height factors or both set to 10, the size of the texture image is 10 x 10 drawing units.
Position
Offset	Texture maps maps are tiled starting from the origin of the WCS. To adjust the tiling you can define an Offset X and Offset Y. The offsets are expressed in drawing units.
Rotation	Sets the rotation of the texture maps. Type the desired rotation in the Rotation field.