How to adjust a seed parameter for procedural textures?

Support Materials and Textures
#1

Hello! I am new to Blender and currently in intense process of learning it. I have a long experience with other 3d software so please forgive me if my question is biased too much by my previous experience and maybe out of blender’s workflow philosophy.

Anyway, I was wondering if there is any way to manually adjust a random generator’s “seed” parameter for procedural textures such as voronoi, clouds, marble, etc.? I couldn’t find any “seed” field in texture properties panel or any other place. Is it not implemented at all or there is some tricky way to do it from other place, such as node editor or python console?

P.S. I checked almost all of procedural textures (for Blender Internal and Cycles) and was quite surprised that none of them had any “seed” field. In my opinion, this is very important and basic feature, without it the whole purpose of procedural textures is almost lost.

#2

for cycles you do have the info node which allows to make some random values fed to the proc texture!
can have like random location ect…

also texture nodes now have a vector input on which you can add another texture
to modify the first one!
that should help get more randomness!

happy bl

#3

Thank you very much!
The info about vector input was very useful!
But could you please explain a little more about “info node”. Did you mean “random” output of object info node? If so, I didn’t get how it works. For example, I connected it to vector input of voronoi node but it just made whole surface plain grey.

#4

I have generally gotten around lack of the seed value by offsetting the texture by certain amounts, when you offset it by a large enough value, you can’t even tell it’s using the same seed because it doesn’t repeat.

Just grab the offset XYZ sliders and let it rip.

#5

@@RickyBlender
Big thanks for the link. Very, very interesting information.

@@Ace_Dragon
Thank you very much. Yes, this method seems to be easiest and fastest alternative to a seed parameter. It alters the pattern while preserving the general look of the texture. Thus, allowing you to make unlimited number of very similar but unique textures. Exactly what I need!

#6

The quickest way I found to use the Random output of the Object Info node is to simply add its value to whatever Texture Coordinates you use with a Vector Math node. (Blender does automatically the conversion.) And you can keep the (huge) Mapping node for situations where you really need it. Something like this:

snap81.png1147×337 57.7 KB

With this material, I made this quickie:

Forum Pseudo Seed.png800×800 905 KB

The 3 cubes are linked copies so they all use the same material but the noise is different on each of them. Easy as pie! :wink:

#7

@@Kaluura

Man, you are genius! You’ve just restored my faith in Blender’s almighty power! ))))
Your example clearly shows me how much more I still have to discover and learn about Blender…
Thank you.

P.S. I was trying to recreate your material by myself for better understanding. Just curios what’s inside your “surface node group”.

#8

does this one also use the mat or ob index or not ?

nice one
like the contrast

happy bl

#9

@Luarvik: Too lazy too do a screenshot, so… See for yourself: Forum Pseudo Seed.blend (114 KB) :wink:

@RickyBlender: No post-processing so no Material or Object Index. BTW, I’m wondering why you think it would be useful here. :confused:

#10

just wondering
i vaguely remember one set up where you had to use the index to make it work
sorry don’t use it vey often not even everyday

i like the shape for this
i m preparing a new script for pre define mat
and i might add it just for fun i’ll put your name as reference if you don’t mind

happy bl

#11

It looks like Kaluura’s method would actually be faster to use for many objects because it’s more ‘automated’ (no need to manually set mapping values).

Though I do agree that it would be nice to have a sort of material ID output that spits out a different value depending on the texture slot of the node material (meaning you can do the same on a single object). For now though, if you need to do it on say, different parts of the same object, you can actually use two different mapping nodes using very different values and mixing the coordinates with vertex colors.

#12

Thanks a lot! Seeing your examples was much faster way for me to learn the idea, compared to reading blender’s wiki! )))