How Does It Work?
CONTRAST increases or reduces the range of values in the Background texture by scaling those values either towards or away from a Median, or middle, value. For Contrast values greater than
50%, the Background texture's values are scaled away from the Median value. That is, values greater than the Median are increased and values smaller than the Median are reduced. For Contrast values less
than 50%, the Background texture's values are scaled towards the Median value. A Contrast setting of exactly 50% has no effect on the Background.
The color CONTRAST component works with the value (HSV) of the Background texture. The percent CONTRAST component works directly with the percent values of the Background texture. Because
bump values are unbounded, the bump CONTRAST determines the amount to increase or decrease the Background texture's values based on Background values themselves. High Contrast values will tend to
increase the scale of the Background bump while low contrast values will flatten out the Background bump. Changing the CONTRAST of a bump texture often does not produce very visible results.
Hints!
Keep in mind that both the Contrast and Median parameters may be linked to another texture. Textures in
a 3D scene that are distant from the camera can often look better and more realistic if their contrast is reduced relative to a texture that is close to the camera. If you are using a texture as a ground plane, you
can use CONTRAST, with its Contrast parameter linked to a Linear_Gradient to vary the contrast across the texture, reducing the contrast of the distant portion of the ground plane texture.
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