Tweak Shader Controls

SimbiontTS's reflectance shaders, primitive textures, and materials all provide controls called Tweaks for changing material attributes.  Below is a screen shot of the tweaks that come with the Rusty Steel material.

These Tweak controls are where SimbiontTS excels over regular bitmap texturing. You can easily change these values and make the material conform to your artistic vision. After you select the Tweak that you want to modify, the appropriate controls are dynamically created.  As you adjust the Tweak control, the Material Editor preview image updates to reflect your changes.

The figure above shows a Color Tweak control. The Edit button brings up the DarkTree color browser. Alternatively, you can left-click and drag across the color swatch.  Drag left and right to change hue , up and down to change saturation. Hold down the Shift key and drag up and down to change value.  Other Tweak controls with swatches (percents, for example) allow you to drag up and down to increase and decrease values.

Some tweaks may not apply to all shader channels. For example, changing the Steel Specular tweak in Rusty Steel will only be noticeable if SimbiontTS is selected in the Reflectance channel. On the other hand, changing the Rustiness tweak will affect color, bump, and reflectance simultaneously.

Left to right: Rustiness at 50%, 15%, and 100%

The Primitive Textures included with SimbiontTS are designed with special Tweaks. Some include Color Tweaks that control the texture even when it is used in the Transparency and Bump shader channels.

Tweaks are keyframable using the Animate Texture tool bar available from the Material Editor.  Please see the Adjust Tab for more info.

NOTE: Changing tweak values is not reliable in layered materials. To tweak a DarkTree in a base layer, change its tweaks before adding any layers.

Extra Shader Settings

 Bump Scale - This control lets you adjust the overall bump scale of the material.  If the current material doesn't have a bump, or you haven't selected SimbiontTS in the bump channel, this control will have no effect. Negative bump values will invert the bump.

Left to right: Amoeba Bump Scale at 1, 0.3, and -1

 Invert Transparency - This control inverts the transparency of a DarkTree if SimbiontTS is selected in the transparency channel.  Note to DarkTree owners: SimbiontTS uses the alpha of a DarkTree to control transparency in trueSpace.

The example belowe shows the Amoeba primitive texture first loaded into the Color shader channel, and then the Bump shader channe as welll.  Transparency is controlled by the values (as in HSV) of the Color 1 and Color 2 tweaks. 

Left to right: no transparency, default transparency, inverted transparency

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