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# 4 06-03-2005 , 07:42 PM
mhcannon's Avatar
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Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Waianae, HI
Posts: 1,275
Not my strong suit, but here goes...

Procedural textures are textures generated from mathematical functions of X,Y. A turbulence procedural texture should create a greyscale noise pattern. Maya has the fractal procedural texture, which should be close to LW turbulence. I'm not a mathmatician so I can't give you much on the math envolved. Maya lets you adjust variable in the equation via slider for various attribute, such as amplitute, and threshold. Although it is generated in grayscale you can set hues in the attributes section also. Really, you'll probably just have to get in and play with the attributes sliders. If you need a more varigated look, like marble, you could use a noise texture instead. You would assign the procedural texture to the color channel of the shader.

Decay rates:
Linear = intensity diminishes over distance uniformally and with soft transitition
Quadratic = intensity diminishes in proportion to distance (this is probably the one you need as it matches real world lighting fairly well)
Cubic = intensity dimishes at a much reduced distance with a sharp drop

sorry, yes I meant dropoff. Dropoff adjusts the intensity of the light from center to outer edge while the penumbra angle adjust the edge softness (these settings are only for spotlights... I think)

Keep the attribute editor open when you're creating the shader and light nodes so that you can see the various attributes. And, like I wrote above, just play with the attributes to see how the affect the scene.

If you need more detailed explanations, I probably can't help you. user added image



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Last edited by mhcannon; 07-03-2005 at 05:07 AM.