DTS Material render node

SHOP node allowing configuration of a DTS material.

Parameters

IFL Material

Selects between normal (single diffuse texture) and IFL (image file list) material types.

Diffuse Texture Map

Defines the texture image to use as a diffuse map. This parameter is ignored if using an IFL type material.

IFL Filename

The name of the file to load or store the list of textures and frame counts used in the IFL material.

Load from File

Loads the list of textures and frame counts from the IFL file. Note that because the textures must be in the same directory as the exported DTS shape and IFL file, only the texture filenames (no path) are stored in the IFL file, and the absolute path is obtained by prepending the path to the IFL file to the texture filename.

Save to File

Saves the current list of textures and frame counts to the IFL file. Note that because the textures must be in the same directory as the exported DTS shape and IFL file, only the texture filenames (no path) are stored in the IFL file.

Number of Textures

Mangages the list of textures and frame counts used by the IFL material.

Texture X

The texture filename (make sure that all IFL textures are in the same directory as the IFL file).

Frame Count X

The number of frames (at 30 frames per second) to display this texture for before switching to the next one.

Reflectance Map

Path to the DTS Material node to use as a reflectance map. If blank, the diffuse texture is used as the reflectance map. When environment mapping is enabled, the alpha channel of the reflectance map is used to determine how reflective the surface of the object is (alpha=0: no reflection, alpha=1: full reflection).

Detail Map

Path to the DTS Material node to use as a detail map. Detail maps are used by the Torque engine to blend two textures together in a two-pass rendering process.

Detail Map Scale

Scale factor applied to the detail map.

Transparency

Selects what type of transparency to use for the material:

  • None: the alpha channel of the diffuse map is ignored.

  • Normal: the alpha channel of the diffuse map controls the transparency of the object

  • Additive: the alpha channel of the diffuse map controls transparency and increases the brightness of the object

  • Subtractive: the alpha channel of the diffuse map controls transparency and decreases the brightness of the object

Env. Mapping

Global environment mapping scaler, applied to the alpha channel of the reflectance map to determine how much environment mapping to apply. If set to 0, no environment mapping is performed.

Visibility

This parameter controls the visibility channel of the object that the material is applied to. The transparency of the object can by animated by animating this parameter and creating a DTS sequence with visibility animation enabled.

U Tiling

Controls texture U coordinate tiling.

V Tiling

Controls texture V coordinate tiling.

Self Illuminating

When enabled, any objects with this material applied will not be affected by lighting within the Torque engine, and will always appear full-bright.

No MipMapping

Enables/disables mip-mapping for this material.

MipMap Zero Border

Enforce a black border around the outside of the texture.

Two Sided

When enabled, both the front and back faces of any polygons this material is applied to will be exported. ie. polygons with this material will be visible from both sides.

IFL Materials

An IFL file is a text file that describes which texture to use at each frame for a DTS shape. Animation sequences can be defined that use this information to switch textures automatically while the animation is playing. The DTS_Material helper node allows IFLs to be edited within Houdini, and the results saved to file ready for use within the Torque engine.

eg. An IFL file, player.ifl, is shown below:

texture1 2 texture2 3 texture3 1 texture4 6

Each line describes the texture to use, and the duration (in frames) to display it.

A sequence must have the EnableIFL flag set to make use of an IFL material. You can find an example of a shape using an IFL material in the examples folder.

Detail Maps

Detail maps allow you to blend two textures together as shown below:

The detail material is scaled by the detail scale setting before being blended with the base material.

Usages in other examples

Example name Example for