Blue Marble material

A basic material simulating blue veined marble. Uses displacement to drive the color.

This is a basic material which uses the displacement value to drive the color. It has a choice of specular functions as well as a mapping for the specular contribution. There is a mask to control the amount of displacement in the designated areas.

Parameters

Surface

Ambient Intensity	A multiplier for the ambient contribution to the material. The ambient lighting model only looks at the ambient lights in the scene. If there are no ambient light, this slider will have no affect.
Lambert Intensity	A multiplier for the diffuse contribution to the material.
Use Base Color	If this box is not checked, the Base Color is ignored and white is substituted. Defaults to on.
Base Color	This is the base color for the material. In this material, the displacement value is imported into the surface shader using dimport. This value drives the spline which selects the Base Color. This color is used as the initial color in the spline. When the displacement value is 0, this is the color returned. Defaults to white.
Tint with Point Color	If this box is checked and the point color, (Cd), is defined, then Cd is multiplied with the Base Color. Defaults to on.
Opacity	The opacity color for this material.

Colors

Spline Type	This selector chooses the way in which the colors are interpolated. Catmull-Rom is a cardinal spline. Linear is much like a mix but with more colors. See spline for a more detailed discussion on splines.
Color 1	The next color in the spline. When the driver of the spline is 0.2, this is the color returned. Defaults to pale blue.
Color 2	The next color in the spline. When the driver of the spline is 0.4, this is the color returned. Defaults to light blue.
Color 3	The next color in the spline. When the driver of the spline is 0.6, this is the color returned. Defaults to medium blue.
Color 4	The next color in the spline. When the driver of the spline is 0.8, this is the color returned. Defaults to darkish blue.
Color 5	The last color in the spline. When the driver of the spline is 1, this is the color returned. More may be added as desired. Defaults to navy blue.

Specular

Specular Intensity	A multiplier for the specular contribution to the material.
Specular Color	The specular highlight color, defaults to white.
U Roughness	This value controls the size or spread of the specular highlight. If Anisotropic is selected, this value controls only the size in the U direction
V Roughness	When Anisotropic is selected, this value controls the size in the V direction
Sharpness	This value controls the sharpness of the edge of the specular highlight. It is used only if Glossy specular is selected
Specular Type	A selector for the specular function. Anisotropic is used to get an elliptical highlight. Glossy is typically used for highly reflective materials to get a sharp edges highlight. See specular for more information.

Specular Map

Use Specular Map	If this box is checked, the specular color is multiplied by the texture in Specular Map. Defaults to off.
Specular Map	This the name of the texture file. The icon to the right opens a file browser.
Spec Map Wrap	Determines what the texture looks like when the texture coordinates are larger or less than 0 to 1. The options are: Repeat means the texture will repeat (tile). Streak means the texture color at the edges is clamped and streaks outside the map. Decal sets the color outside the texture map to the Border Color. See texture for more information.
Spec Map Filter	Type of anti-aliasing filter used. See texture for more information.
Spec Map Width	Filter Width is the number of pixels, in both u and v directions, to use in filtering.
Spec Map Border	The color used outside the map if Decal Wrap is selected.

Displacement

Overall scale	Controls the overall scale of the rough areas.
Pattern Bias	This value shifts the median value of the pattern. Values greater than 1, will dampen the noise down, whereas values less than 1 will sharpen the pattern.
Pattern Lower Range	This value control the size of the space between the veins. Higher values create more smooth space and narrower veins. This value should be less than Pattern Upper Range, below.
Pattern Upper Range	This value dictates the level of the pattern which goes to 1. Lower values make much fatter veins and tend to obscure the edge noise. This value should be greater than Pattern Lower Range, above.

Veins

Vein Frequency	The frequency of the veins.
Vein Attenuation	This value controls the width of the veins.
Vein Offset	This value moves the veins in, if less than 0 and out, if greater than 0.

Noise

Noise Frequency	This value controls how "noisy" or "wigglily" the veins are. Smaller values will benefit from higher Octaves values. Low Frequency and low Octaves give very smooth veining.
Noise Amplitude	This is the maximum value of the noise function. This effects the size of the noise or "wiggle". Changes to this value may effect the choices for the Pattern Range, above.
Noise Offset	This vector positions the noise in x, y, and z.
Noise Octaves	This value controls the amount of details in the noise. This is the number of times the noise function is called and added to the previous value. If the Frequency is high, there is no need for so much detail, 1 or 2 should be plenty. This value can effects the Amplitude as well since the summing can result in higher base values. Changes to this value may also effect the choices for the Noise Range, above.

Mask

Use Displace Mask	If this box is checked, the Overall Scale is multiplied by the texture map in Displacement Mask. Defaults to off.
Displacement Mask	This the name of the mask file. The icon to the right opens a file browser.
Mask Channel Select	Picks which channel of the texture is used for the mask. This allows using the one map for 3 masks. The default is lum which uses the luminance of all the channels in the texture as the mask.
Mask Wrap	Determines what the texture looks like when the texture coordinates are larger or less than 0 to 1. The options are: Repeat means the texture will repeat (tile). Streak means the texture value at the edges is clamped and streaks outside the map. Decal sets the color outside the texture map to the Border Color. See texture for more information.
Mask Filter Type	Type of anti-aliasing filter used. See texture for more information.
Mask Filter Width	Filter Width is the number of pixels, in both u and v directions, to use in filtering.
Mask Border Color	The color used outside the map if Decal Wrap is selected. This should be selected based on the Displacement Offset.

Properties

Displacement Bounds

Usually tying this value to the displacement Overall Scale should work well. However making the displacement bounds as small as possible, without causing "rips" in the render, can lower render times. See render properties for more information.