Tiles Texture

[Wizard]

[EDIT] This started life as a plugin but the implementation is being moved to blender as a new texture. [/EDIT]

I was going through some of the texture plugins and had a different idea of computing the intensity and bump map. Moreover I wanted to produce a set of bricks of random width that was repeatable and could be offset arbitrarily to produce different patterns.

Screenshots (artifacts due to JPEG compression):




There are 3 modes: Linear, Quadratic and Cubic. These basically control the fall-off of the brick intensity function from the brick face to the mortar.


My next idea is to introduce some sort of noise function to perturb the texture.

[EDIT]: I ended up borrowing a couple of functions from other plugins. Will double-check terms of use before releasing source code (in case some one wants this).
[EDIT2]: I borrowed a mod() function from the brick.c in the Blender Plugin Repository and its Public Domain. Didn't want to write it myself

Download: Win32 version compiled with mingw + Linux version compiled with bmake + Mac version.

Beta Version: Win32 version compiled with mingw.

Please read the README.TXT file. It has a note about bump mapping.
The Mac version was supplied by sarah and it may or may not work on all Macintosh systems.

[goosey]

Nice. Look forward to it being released

[PapaSmurf]

This sounds very nice! Please ensure that it is tileable (scale less than 1 or add the Repeats fields). With a speckle tex on top of this and some procedureal coloring I bet you could easily get a very good looking brick texture simply and quickly. Keep up the good work!

[Wizard]

Here's another little modification that allows rounded corners and as a bonus circular patterns.




I'm having trouble with the interpolation right now so as soon as I fix it, I can post the source code for your scrutiny.

[Wizard]

I started messing around with the texture panels and found a nice use of IWarp. This may mean I wouldn't need to add any noise functions to my code.

The following was generated by using a Stucci texture on top of the brick pattern with IWarp.


This one uses the brick pattern as stencil followed by a stucci texture for IWarp followed by the same brick pattern for bump map.

[tarkata14]

Looks awesome! You should release a test version....

[PapaSmurf]

love that rounded texture - used on commercial floor mats. It made me think of the other common tex is the diamond plate stainless steel trim, usually on truck panels and steps, utility/tool boxes. This boiler plate, which is rouneded, whereas diamond is sharp-edged to grip better.

[sarah]

Nice bricks! I particularly like the stucci-warped ones.

I discovered the "warp" feature after adding noise and distortion to my first plugin, but I'm still of two minds about whether to take them out. On the one hand, they aren't really necessary, but on the other hand, it's a little easier to tweak a texture, particularly for newbies, since you don't have to know how to use a texture to warp another one... you can just click on the little buttons in the plugin panel and see the results immediately.

[Trevor]

That's nice! I'd like to use it when you release it. I can foresee some awesome uses for the rounded edges in my sci-fi stuff.

[PapaSmurf]

imho, simple redundancy is better. It staves off the "gosh I have to go here and then here and then over here just to..." argument. It also easier to say X in this is the same as Y in this and Z in that, as once they learn it in Y then their knowledge applies to X and Z, and helps with the "got it" factor. so, if it doesn't complicate matters terribly, leave it in. I would hope you donate this to the open source so it can become another great procedural texture.

[sarah]

Originally Posted by PapaSmurf imho, simple redundancy is better. It staves off the "gosh I have to go here and then here and then over here just to..." argument. It also easier to say X in this is the same as Y in this and Z in that, as once they learn it in Y then their knowledge applies to X and Z, and helps with the "got it" factor. so, if it doesn't complicate matters terribly, leave it in. I would hope you donate this to the open source so it can become another great procedural texture.

Yeah, that's pretty much what I ended up deciding... besides, it was less work to leave it in than to take it out!

I put my plugins under the GPL... I hope the bricks will be Open Source too; I'd like to see the bump mapping code, as that was something I had a little trouble with, as I recall.

[darkcgi]

Awesome cant wait to use it.
Hope I can find you again when its done.
Should try and get blendernation to post it on their site when its finished

[migero]

yea really cool one waiting for a beta or at least an alpha version ;]

[Wizard]

I finally ironed out some nasty little details with the round corners (hopefully). So now all 3 types of interpolation should work (Linear, Quadratic, Cubic).

Please see Post #1 for links to the Windows version of the plugin. I'll see what I can do about compiling for Linux.

If you have any questions, concerns or ideas, feel free to let me know. The source will be GPL when I'm done after all I've learnt a lot from other plugins.

If you manage to create something cool with it, please post your results in this thread if possible. Would like to know if it finds use anywhere.

Cheers.

[Wizard]

I forgot to add. I've added a rotation control. So you can mask marble and wood textures as their default orientation is at a 45 degree angle.

[Wizard]

A quick test with displacement modifier:

[Ace Dragon]

Maybe you can add random intensity to it, one result would be bricks sticking out more then others. Another use would be tight colorband controls to give random color (I've done this with cellnoise)

[Wizard]

Originally Posted by Cyborg Dragon Maybe you can add random intensity to it, one result would be bricks sticking out more then others. Another use would be tight colorband controls to give random color (I've done this with cellnoise)

This is actually a very good idea.

Right now, mortar is at 0 intensity followed by a ramp (linear, quadratic, cubic) for the bevel from 0 to 1. I was thinking of compressing this range to something like 0.25 - 0.75 so it can allow for other effects. I will add your idea to my list of enhancements; each brick can be randomly displaced up or down (based on a min/max setting).

Thanks.

[Ace Dragon]

And what do I have to do to make it work, just download this and chuck it into the plugins folder?

I'll see about downloading this once this is to its full potential.

[Wizard]

As long as you unzip all files in one folder, you can load the plugin from anywhere.