Intermediate Materials 2

Tutorial 2 in the Intermediate Twilight Render V2 Tutorial Series

Twilight Render materials are based on the concept of Templates, preconfigured materials that are easily adjustable to achieve a desired effect.  Twilight Render V2 comes equipped with a large variety of material templates.  In this tutorial we will continue to look at more commonly used materials.

 

Shiny Chrome is another commonly used metal. In this example, the typical SketchUp shiny metal texture was already applied to the model. It's important to choose settings in Twilight Render's material editor that will not be influenced by this texture which usually maps badly around curved surfaces, like in this example.

To create shiny chrome:

1. Click on the Twilight Render Material Editor in the TWR toolbar
2. Click in the scene on the chrome material texture that you want to edit.
3. Choose template Metal->Aluminum from the Templates menu.
4. Color represents the primary color of the material.  You can change it to use a custom color by choosing "Color" from the drop-down menu, and assign a light grey color using the color picker.
5. For smooth chrome, leave Bump at the default "Color"; this means that there will be no bump. 
6. Change Shininess to 5000 to get the shininess of chrome.

Anodized Aluminum is a common architectural metal. In this example, the legs of the chair had a light grey color applied to the model. The color in SketchUp will be used by default in Twilight Render's material editor. Be sure to keep all curved surfaces inside of a group or component in order to render smoothed curves.

To create Clear Anodized Aluminum:

1. Click on the Twilight Render Material Editor in the TWR toolbar
2. Click in the scene on the aluminum material texture that you want to edit.
3. Choose template Metal->Aluminum from the Templates menu.
4. Color represents the primary color of the material.  You can change it to use a custom color by choosing "Color" from the drop-down menu, and assign a light grey color using the color picker.
5. For smooth chrome, leave Bump at the default "Color"; this means that there will be no bump. 
6. Change IOR to be very low, 1.05
7. Change Shininess to 20 to get the shininess of chrome.

Glossy Wood with Beveled Edges is a V2Pro feature as the bevel edges modifier requires the Deep Material editor.  However, it's very easy to create. In this example the wood base of this toy has sharp corners. These will not look realistic when rendered. Instead of wasting time to model them as rounded, we can simply add a bevel modifier in the Deep Editor Bump channel. It requires welding the vertices of the mesh, but, thankfully, you don't have to worry about what all that means.

To create glossy wood with bevel edge modifier:

1. Click on the Twilight Render Material Editor in the TWR toolbar
2. Click in the scene on the concrete wood texture that you want to edit.
3. Choose template Paint->Gloss or Wood->Gloss from the Templates menu.
4. Convert to Deep Material by selecting it from the Tools menu.
5. Check the 'Weld Vertices' box and choose Hard Angle to be 30 or 45 degrees.
6. Select the 'Bump' element in the Material Tree list on the left.
7. Right-click on the Bump element and choose 'Bevel Modifier' from the context menu.
8. Set the thickness for the bevel modifier.  Keep it subtle and realistic in size. Changing the preview scene to match something relatively close in size to your model will be helpful in previewing the corners and how the bevel will look.
9. Set Hard Angle to the same angle you set when setting Weld Vertices above; either 30 or 45 are common. When an angle on the surface of your material is greater than/sharper than this angle, the bevel will not be applied, when an angle on the surface is equal to or less than this defined angle then the modifier will be applied.

 

Edge Lines (or Wireframe Edges) allow you to choose any material in your scene and give a specific line thickness to any face's edges. This is great for cabinetry or architectural decorative panels where in SketchUp you have only drawn a single line edge to define a face instead of creating the actual geometry of a panel. This effect will not work with an edge if it is not part of a face. 

To use Edge Lines modifier:

1. Click on the Twilight Render Material Editor in the TWR toolbar
2. Click in the scene on material/texture that you want to edit.
3. Choose any template and apply it to your chosen material. In this case, we will use "Plastic>Shiny" in the example.
4. Choose "Advanced" pulldown menu at the bottom of the Twilight Render Material Editor panel.
5. Click the checkbox for "Enable Edge Lines"
6. Click the checkbox for "Weld Vertices"
7. Define the Hard Edge Angle - the minimum angle between adjacent faces that results in sharp edges if welding or edge lines is enabled (this also controls Bevel feature as described above). Give the Hard Edge Angle as the angle between adjacent faces where you would like the Edge Lines to begin to appear. Any adjacent faces with a lower angle will render without the edge lines. 45 is a typical good starting point, if you are confused. Please see the animated .gif below for a quick demo of the Weld Angle and how it effects the Edge Lines modifier.
8. Define the Line Thickness - the thickness of the appearance of the edge itself. For small objects, like cabinetry, this should be small, like less than 10mm(1cm), for larger objects, like a building exterior with large concrete panels, try 30mm (3cm)