Procedural textures in Blender have suffered from one thing: a lack of variation. The developers have gone a long way toward fixing this problem by adding several different noise algorithms on which the existing procedural textures can be based. Artists: You are no longer stuck with clouds! Click below to visit the samples gallery for example blend files and settings or read on to learn about each of the new procedural textures.
The new procedurals were kindly contributed by eeshlo.
In addition, each noise-based Blender texture (with the exception of Voronoi and simple noise) has a new "Noise Basis" setting that allows the user to select which algorithm is used to generate the texture. This list includes the original Blender noise algorithm.
There are three completely new procedurals in Blender 2.33 which can be used to create limitless numbers of interesting textures beyond what was possible in the past. They are available in the texture type dropdown on the texture buttons (F6) and appear as the first three entries in the list:
This texture has two options to pick from: Distortion Noise, and Noise Basis. Both allow you to pick from Blender's list of noise types. Distortion Noise takes the option that you pick from Noise Basis and filters it, to create hybrid pattern. We also have the options in Distorted Noise to work with the Noise Size and the Distortion Amount. This allows you to adjust the size of the noise generated and amount that Distortion Noise affects Noise Basis.
This procedural texture has seven Distance Metric options. These determine the algorithm to find the distance between cells of the texture. These options are:
The Minkovsky setting has a user definable value (the Exp button) which determines the exponent (e) of the distance function (x^e + y^e + z^e)^(1/e). A value of one produces the Manhattan distance metric, a value less then one produces stars, and higher values produce square cells.
Different shaped cells in the texture can be obtained by using the other four settings:
Chebychev - irregularly-sized square cells
Manhattan - randomly-positioned diamond shaped cells
Actual Distance/Distance Squared - irregularly-shaped rounded cells
Four sliders at the bottom of the Voronoi panel represent the values of the four Worley constants (explained a bit in the Worley Documentation), which are used to calculate the distances between each cell in the texture based on the distance metric. Adjusting these values can have some interesting effects on the end result. Check the Samples Gallery for some examples of these settings and what textures they produce.
At the top of the panel there are four variation buttons which use four different noise basis as methods to calculate color and intensity of the texture output. This gives the Voronoi texture you create with the "Worley Sliders" a completely different appearance and is the equivalent of the noise basis setting found on the other textures.
For a more in depth description of the Worley algorithm, see:
This procedural texture has five noise types on which the resulting pattern can be based and they are selectable from a dropdown menu at the top of the tab. The five types are:
These noise types determine the manner in which Blender layers successive copies of the same pattern on top of each other at varying contrasts and scales.
In addition to the five noise types, Musgrave has a noise basis setting which determines the algorithm that generates the noise itself. These are the same noise basis options found in the other procedural textures.
The main noise types have four characteristics which can be set in the number buttons below the dropdown list. They are:
Fractal dimension controls the contrast of a layer relative to the previous layer in the texture. The higher the fractal dimension, the higher the contrast between each layer, and thus the more detail shows in the texture.
Lacuniarity controls the scaling of each layer of the Musgrave texture, meaning that each additional layer will have a scale that is the inverse of the value which shows on the button. i.e. Lacu = 2 -> Scale = 1/2 original
Octave controls the number of times the original noise pattern is overlayed on itself and scaled/contrasted with the fractal dimension and lacuniarity settings.
The Hybrid Multifractal, Ridged Multifractal, and Hetero Terrain types have additional settings. All three have a "Fractal Offset" button labeled Ofst. This serves as a "sea level" adjustment and indicates the base height of the resulting bump map. Bump values below this threshold will be returned as zero. Hybrid Multifractal and Ridged Multifractal both have a Gain setting which determines the range of values created by the function. The higher the number, the greater the range. This is a fast way to bring out additional details in a texture where extremes are normally clipped off.
More information about these textures can be found at the following URL:
