Random glass tile material

[Tim Nelson]

Can anybody give me a clue as to how I could easily make a material of a tile pattern that has 3 different colors in it arranged in a random order? I know there's got to be a super easy way, but I have no clue!

[Ernest Burden III]

Box noise scaled up and colored

[Tim Nelson]

Hmm, box noise? I don't know if you can do that in Max or not. On the noise map I didn't see any option to change it to a box shape, plus it only gives the option for 2 colors.

[Chad Warner]

Dont know if either of these will help, but:

http://www.cgarchitect.com/vb/showthread.php?p=57051#post57051

http://www.cgarchitect.com/vb/showthread.php?t=5222&highlight=random

 

Maybe?

[Ernest Burden III]

Hmm, box noise? I don't know if you can do that in Max or not. On the noise map I didn't see any option to change it to a box shape, plus it only gives the option for 2 colors.

 

By box I mean squares. Cinema has a choice of about 25 different noise patters, one is called 'cell' that makes squares. The noise has a scaling factor, so I am able to enlarge it (trial and render) to be squares as big as I want. Is the point to make a never-repeating material? If so, noise is the way.

 

If you just want a pretty good random pattern within an image map then you have to go with noise.

 

What you could do for a regular map is apply any grayscale noise, then use 'mosaic' filter to reduce it to the right number of squares (have a grid on another layer in multiply mode) and do auto-levels to force black-white. Now you 'posterize' to your desired number of colors. Playing with the middle grays will vary a bit the amount of each shade in the end. Just three colors is going to have a lot of same-neighbors.

 

Having done that, do a magic wand select to mask each shade, fill with desired color. Like this:

[Ernest Burden III]

Cinema has a choice of about 25 different noise patterns, one is called 'cell' that makes squares.

 

Figured I had better try this out after opening my big mouth. It was a little harder than I thought, but I finally got a random 3 color pattern.

 

It uses square noise set at 100% contrast (to avoid all the inbetween shades) and then layered with a second copy of the same noise at the same scale, with a layer blend. I could have used many of the modes, I chose difference. The trick to getting just three colors was to have one noise with two colors and the other with one plus black or white (so as not to add a fourth color). Because the noise was the same, it had the same seed so both patterns were the same! Not helpful. So I raised the brightness on one and lowered it on the other to vary the pattern.

 

So there's a color, you still have to make grout, bump the tile edges, etc. Easier in Photoshop as described above.

[Tim Nelson]

Ernest you're a god among renderers! I think the photoshop method might work for me. Like you said, its hard not to get the colors bunched together in groups, but I think I can make it work. Thanks again.

[Tim Nelson]

Rockin!

[Tim Nelson]

Dont know if either of these will help, but:

http://www.cgarchitect.com/vb/showthread.php?p=57051#post57051

http://www.cgarchitect.com/vb/showthread.php?t=5222&highlight=random

 

Maybe?

 

Hey Chad, thanks for posting those links. In all the excitement I tried the Photoshop method first and that worked good enough for me. Fran's method looks pretty awesome, but I am still very much a novice at Max's sub-object materials & all that. I'm glad people like you remember posts like that though. There are so many times when I know the answer is out there but I can never find it.....kind of like the X-Files.

[nisus]

Straight in max, us the bricks/tiles map with hard settings to change between two colors, nex mix this on a higher level with a third color and another bricks/tiles map.

If you continue this, you can have a deifferent specular, bump etc for each cell, and even add sub-cell differences etc...

 

rgds

 

nisus

[Chad Warner]

I would have used the photoshop method myself, for the same reasons as you...a little more comfortable with it, but I didn't know how to achieve that result until Ernest so kindly shared his wisdom.

 

Although now, I will have to try nisus' version as well just to see how it works.

[Ernest Burden III]

Straight in max, us the bricks/tiles map

 

OK. I forgot that Cinema has a similar material surface type.

 

It was able to do three colors, and randomize them and bevel the edges and, and. But It varied the tones in such a way that it created more than 3 color tiles. It was easier than the noise layers, but not as successful overall.

[Ernest Burden III]

OK. I forgot that Cinema has a similar material surface type.

 

You would think I didn't have anything else to do. But I guess this is how we learn to do stuff in our programs.

 

I wanted to try combining the noise shader for color with the buit-in tilemaker for bump, then thought I would try it as transparent glass tiles:

[Tim Nelson]

That turned out pretty good. They don't look like transparent glass though.

[nisus]

Hi Ernest,

 

Glad you're trying that technique. I've been using it for years to make VERY large non-tileable brick procedural-'bitmaps'. You can add noise per segment, or over the grounts also to have a 'bloom' masonry effect, add noise in the grounts,.. Use different seed settings for specular, glossiness settings etc... ;-)

 

Something is wrong with the 'bump' imho... in the middle ground the depth of the tiles looks reversed... Try displacement ;-)

 

rgds

 

nisus

[Ernest Burden III]

Hi Ernest,

Something is wrong with the 'bump' imho... in the middle ground the depth of the tiles looks reversed... Try displacement ;-)

 

That is refraction in the glass transparency.

 

Tim, how are you going to proceed with your tiles?

[Tim Nelson]

I'm going to stick with the photoshop map method. I placed the map into a 'tiles' material & added the grout, bump & glossiness maps. Turned out pretty good I think.

 

Then I put the material into my rendering, only to realize that they are 1" tiles & you lose most of the detail anyways. But hopefully that will change for the final render, probably at around 3500 pixels wide....or maybe less if I get bogged down with the all the glass.

[Sawyer]

There was a plug-in that did this it. It was pretty nifty as you could also give it a blend % so your colors came out random as well as the placement. It was cheap like 25 us and came with a free demo, but when I upgarded v-ray it stopped working. the thing I like was that you placed a uvw modifier and scaled that to the exact tile size.

 

If you want I can look up the link.

[Tim Nelson]

Sawyer, sounds nice. But if it doesn't work with Vray, I wouldn't be able to use it either.

[Sawyer]

Here is the link its really nice I hope they update it. Infact they may have already the website has been updated. Go to the products sections.

 

 

http://www.af-video.com/

[Tim Nelson]

Cool, I like the AF company a lot. They have always been very helpful. I purchased AF Channels a while ago, and at the the time it wasn't supported by Vray but the newer version is. I haven't tried it yet though since now I am using Cebas PSD Manager.

 

So I bet the tile plug-in would work with Vray too.