| Texture | Cloud | Fractal | Advanced | Render Tree Usage
Category: Texture
Shader Family: Texture
Output: Color
Simulates a simple cloud with a roughly spherical topology. Based on a 3D fractal function that can be animated. Because of
the method used to determine how close to the cloud's silhouette we are, it is necessary to use this shader on objects of
spherical shape, like spheres or other curved surfaces.
Texture
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The shader's name. Enter any name you like, or leave the default.
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Bump Mapping
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Switches bump mapping on or off.
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Will use the texture's alpha channel to achieve a bump map.
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Defines how "bumpy" the bump map will be. A negative value will invert the bump inward and a positive bump map factor will
bump outward.
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Controls the U, V, and Z steps of a bump map. Use this parameter to "smooth" bumps or make them more jagged.
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Cloud
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The shader's name. Enter any name you like, or leave the default.
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Defines the color of fractal clouds.
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Defines the color used for the sky (constant background color).
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Calculates the alpha channel when rendering.
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Controls the contrast of the colors. 0 uses the average of the two colors, and no blending is attempted. This speeds up rendering
a little.
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Copy Alpha to RGB
When activated, multiplies the RGB channels with the alpha channel by the factor define in the Alpha Strength parameter.
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Determines the factor by which the Alpha is multiplied with the RGB channels.
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Fractal
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The shader's name. Enter any name you like, or leave the default.
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Fractal
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You can choose two noise functions to build the fractal: Perlin and Recursive.
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The amplitude of decay of the fractal iterations, defined as the ratio of the amplitudes of two successive iterations. For values less than 1, successive iterations decrease in amplitude; for values greater than 1, they increase in amplitude and the fractal becomes unbounded.
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The frequency multiplier for subsequent iterations. Fractal frequency is the inverse of scale. Doubling the frequency with
the Frequency Multiplier is the same as scaling down the texture by a factor of 0.5.
1 = a sharp fractal texture with low detail; 2 = a more detailed and varying texture.
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The maximum number of noise iterations used when calculating the fractal. Works with Minimum Level in determining the complexity
of the fractal.
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The minimum amplitude at which iteration will continue. Used to determine how often the noise function is called. This parameter
can be used to control the amount of detail in the texture.
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Defines the time (seconds) used to animate clouds.
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When on, the fractal procedure uses a slightly different algorithm, which causes discontinuities in the fractal itself. This
creates the impression of turbulence.
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Edge Transparency
Controls the transparency of clouds' edges and/or centers. Although this creates more realistic clouds, it takes longer to
render.
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Switches on the edge transparency parameters.
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Controls the abruptness of the change from the center of the cloud to the edge. If the value is small, the change is abrupt.
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Defines the base amplitude of the fractal used to calculate the edge transparency. This parameter only applies to the amplitude
of the first iteration; successive iterations may further increase the amplitude.
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Defines the average alpha value at the center of the cloud.
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The corresponding value for the cloud's edge (see the above parameter).
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Advanced
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The shader's name. Enter any name you like, or leave the default.
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Alternate
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Specifies whether every other copy of the repetition should be reversed so that the successive copies of the texture are alternated.
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Repeats
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Contains the repetition factor in X,Y, and Z. A value of 2, for example, shrinks the texture so that it fits twice in a [0..1]
interval.
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UV Remap
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Determines the remapping of the texture image. For a 2D image, only X and Y are used.
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Render Tree Usage
Color parameters can be connected to other textures or image processing shaders. A texture's scalar parameters can be altered
to create interesting effects by applying Texture Generator shaders to them. For example, the Contrast can be controlled with
the Gradient Texture Generator shader.
A texture shader has limitless capabilities in a render tree. It can texture an object, be used as a camera or light projection,
define bump or displacement maps, or be blended with any number of other textures to create any effect.
Except where otherwise noted, this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License
