Date: Tue, 20 Jan 1998 19:02:19 +0000 From: George Cole Subject: [IML] QUEST: Filter, colour maps and textures. Sorry if you're getting this twice. I sent it last week but Netscape was acting up so when I clicked "send unsent messages" I'm not sure it did. I was wondering if some-one could help me with a question. I'm texturing an object and I have two colour maps and two filter maps. i.e. 1.a. Filter map 1.b. Colour map 2.a. Filter map 2 2.b. Colour map 2 This is the order in which I currently have them arranged in my attributes menu. I have named them 1.a. to 2.b. for ease of explanation. I want filter map 1.a to affect colour map 1.b. ONLY. I also want filter map 2.a. to affect colour map 2.b. ONLY. In other words I don't want filter map 1.a. to affect colour map 2.b. At the moment this doesn't seem to be happening. How can I create this effect? Also does imagine take white to be total transparency on a filter map or black? I think it is white but I forgot this when creating my filter maps (as some paint programs use black as total transparency) and so I took black to be total transparency. Date: Tue, 20 Jan 1998 18:16:21 +0400 From: Charles Blaquiere Imagine uses the term "Filter", which helps you remember that the maximum value (255, white) means maximum filter, i.e. total transparency. Does the "Inverse Video" button use the opposite colour values of my transparency map and so make my maps work as I wish them to or do I have to modify my original maps? Date: Tue, 20 Jan 1998 18:16:21 +0400 From: Charles Blaquiere Exactly. With "Inverse Video", Imagine uses a negative version of your brushmap, so a brushmap with Inverse Video activated would be painted _black_ where you wanted total transparency. Also what uses do the "use red channel" attributes have (please give examples). Thanks, Date: Tue, 20 Jan 1998 18:16:21 +0400 From: Charles Blaquiere Brushmaps allow you to vary object attributes on a (brushmap) pixel-by-pixel basis, and they cover all values found in the Attributes dialog. When a value is RGB, like color or filter, all three channels (R, G, and B) of the brushmap are used to control the appropriate value. For attributes which use a single number, like hardness, Imagine only needs a single value. Impulse arbitrarily decided to use the red channel for this. It means that, for single-value attributes like altitude or hardness, people typically use a greyscale image to help them visualize the effect, but all that's really used by Imagine are the numbers in the red component. ---------------------------------- Date: Tue, 20 Jan 1998 20:58:29 GMT From: Robert Dales Hi George, If you're using Imagine for DOS I think you should be able to use the textures in Steve Blackmon's Texture Toolkit 2, which you should have in your Imagine directory somewhere (the unregistered versions were included with Imagine 4.0). They are a very powerful set of textures which basically allow you to store the attributes of an object, apply another texture or brush map, then blend the previous attributes of the object with the new attributes (which, if I understand you correctly, is exactly what you want to do). It took me a while to get my head round them (they're not for the faint-hearted, and I still mess-up sometimes when using them) but they are very useful. I think there are equivalent or similar textures for Imagine For Windows, written by Alan Bucior (please correct me, someone, if I am in error).