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Art Text material editor lets you create two types of materials: materials based on shaders (light spots) and materials based on images.
To create a new material, select Create a Material in the material category drop-down list.
To edit an existing custom material, double click on its thumbnail. You cannot modify a built-in material, but you can modify and save its copy. For this, double-click a material thumbnail in the library.
In a shader-based material, light spots on a specular surface are simulated to create 3D looking objects. The editor of materials allows you adjusting light spots and previewing the result on a sample sphere and on letters.
The window of the editor shows a list of custom materials. Buttons below the list let you add, remove and make a copy of the selected material. The middle part of the window shows parameters of the selected material. Samples of an applied material are displayed on the right.
1 – Additional specular light.
2 – Ambient color.
3 – Diffuse color.
4 – Main specular light.
The ambient light is emitted by a general indirect source. In 3D graphics the
ambient color is used as color of object part laying in shadow.
Without the ambient light (color is set to black), the object in shadow is black.
Diffuse is not really a source of light. Diffuse color is used to describe how the object will look at poor white lighting. It is used to make an object have some color when it is under light.
Specular light is the light reflected by the object in some direction. It seems like highlight from spot light source.
The program supports multiple specular light sources.
To add more specular highlights, click the Add Spotlight button.
To turn on/off all additional spotlights, use the Additional specular spotlights option. For separate control, use On/Off options of individual spotlights.
To remove an additional spotlight, click its Remove button.
“^” and “v” arrows change the order of additional spotlights. Their order can affect the resulting image.
Azimuth defines the horizontal direction from which the light is shed. In other words, the Azimuth control rotates a light spot around the sample sphere center.
Elevation defines how high the light source is located. The central position of the slider sets the source right above the sphere.
Shininess defines the intensity of reflected light. Shininess is used in 3D graphics to show how the highlight from the given spot light source looks from different viewer's positions. When the look direction coincides with the direction of the reflected light, the highlight has maximum brightness. This corresponds to the minimum value of Shininess.
Spot Size defines the size of highlight. At greater values of the Spot Size the surface looks matte, at lower - glossy.
Border sets how smooth the edge of the light spot is.
Apart from the Azimuth and Elevation controls, the location of spotlights can be changed right on the sample sphere. For this, select the Show spotlight controls option. Small circles that appear in the preview are handles. Drag a handle with the mouse to move the corresponding light spot. The bigger handle corresponds to the main specular light.
Using images, you can create materials that give a result similar to shaders as well as completely different pictures.
To create a new material, select Create a Material in the material category drop-down list. In the material editor, click the Create from Image button and choose a graphic file. Then close the editor. Any further adjustments can be made in the main window.
An example of image-based material:
A similar result can be achieved using shaders.
