Convert a solid texture to a File texture

One of the disadvantages of using a solid texture is apparent during animation. When you animate a surface that is mapped with a solid texture, the surface appears to flow through the solid material. One method of solving this problem is to convert the solid texture into a File texture.

To convert a solid texture into a File texture

Pick the surfaces you want to create a shader for.
In the Multi-lister, pick the shader for the selected surfaces.
Select Edit > Convert Solid Tex in the Multi-lister. A dialog box appears.

The default value for Image Size is 256 pixels square. Image files are created and sized so that the Image Size corresponds to the longest dimension of the largest selected surface. If more than one surface is selected, the other image files are proportionally smaller. The valid range is 8 - 1024 pixels.

Tip
Larger image files require more memory to render, and depending on the render specifications, may not noticeably improve render quality. Anti Aliasing is recommended in most circumstances, but Convert Solid Tex takes four times longer than if Anti Aliasing is OFF.

Note
Convert Solid Tex places the newly generated image files in a subdirectory (that has the same name as the shader being converted) in the pix directory of the current project.
Click OK. Information is displayed in the information line.

The progress bar at the far right indicates the status of the current image creation.