Layers

You can have several layers in your Material Editor. To make a new layer, right-click inside the preview window and select "Add new layer". As you can see from the pop-up list, by right-clicking on the  preview window you can also choose "Destroy layer" (if you want to get rid of that particular layer), "Duplicate layer" (if you want to make a copy of the layer selected), and "Reset all" (this makes the Material Editor go back to the default). (Fig. 8.20)

Fig. 8.20

Fig. 8.21

Fig. 8.22

For the color, bump and reflectance channels above the base layer you can also load a transparency map. Just click on the transparency button in the top of these windows and choose the "mask alpha" option, then choose the transparency map. (Fig. 8.22) However, you have to keep in mind that on this second layer and on  subsequent layers the transparency maps behave differently:

1.  If you use a TGA file for the transparency map, then on the second layer's transparency solid areas will now be marked by gray colors, not white. So those areas will actually be semi-transparent, i.e. the underlying layer's texture will show through somewhat (Fig. 8.23).

Figure 8.23

Figure 8.24

Figure 8.25

Light emitting textures (tS6 only)

In trueSpace 6, you can turn your object into a light source. To do this, click on the little light bulb in the top bar of the Material Editor's preview window (1). This will bring up the Material Emission panel. Check the "Use material light" option (2) and voila, your object will emit light. Set the intensity with the slider (3) or numerically (4). To enable shadow-casting, click on the little window underneath the intensity controllers on the left and drag to the little icon of the sphere casting a shadow (5). To the right of the words "Shadow Type", you can choose whether you want raycast or mapped shadows (6). Raycast shadows are sharper and more accurate, but lake longer to render. Under the shadow type, you can also set the shadow transparency (7). If you have an object that has a transparency shader or map applied to it and you want this object to have accurate shadows (i.e. the light to pass through the transparent parts), then use transparent shadows. (Fig. 8.26)

Fig. 8.26

Fig. 8.27

If you want to make the light more intensive, select your object and click on "Flip all normals of object" (Fig. 8.27). But, if you use raycast shadows, flipping the faces will make the rendering time much longer.

The light emitting texture can be applied to the whole object, or only to selected faces. To apply it to the whole object, click on the funnel shape in the Material Editor. To apply it to only one of more faces, first select the face, then click on "Paint Face". (Fig. 8.28)

Fig. 8.28

Animated textures

1. To animate your material, click on the material animation icon (the icon in the top left corner that looks like a film cell). This opens up the material animation controls on top of the preview window.
2. Load your material.
3. Click the record keyframe icon (red circle)  at frame 0.
4. Select the frame where you want to create the next keyframe (you can either enter it manually in the little text box or use the spinner control to advance to that frame).
5. Load the new material or edit the original one.
6. Click the record keyframe button to create the new keyframe.
7. Keep doing this until you have all the keyframes and materials/material settings you want, then apply the animated texture to your object by clicking on the Paint Object icon on the left side (the funnel shape). (Fig. 8.29)

  Fig. 8.29