A (Creator-) Texture is a collection of 2D images (maps) that enriches a Material or a Geometry.

These maps help to improve the surface representation.

For one and the same Texture, a number of real Files (maps) can be uploaded in Assets/Files. The image size of a map file should always be a power of 2, such as 512×512.

Each map can be provided in different resolutions that will be used in different steps during the data creation.

• *_std.* - standard resolution of a map. This map is used inside all configurators
• *_high.* - high resolution for renderings. it is recommended to provide them as 4K

For a Material following maps are allowed:

• Diffuse map (standard.jpg/diffuse_std.jpg, diffuse_high.jpg )
• Roughness map (roughness_std.jpg, roughness_high.jpg)
• Normal map (normals_std.png, normals_high.png)
• Delta Diffuse map (diffuse_delta_std.jpg, diffuse_delta_high.jpg)
• Delta Roughness map (roughness_delta_std.jpg, roughness_delta_high.jpg)
• Alpha map (alpha_std.jpg)

File formats

The texture maps can be provided as one as the following file formats:

• jpg - is a compressed file format. This can be used to lower the data size of an image. In case of providing maps in this format make sure a texture of 1024×1024 doesn't use more than 500kB for storage.
• png - is an uncompressed file format. It is recommended to use this only for normal maps.

Patch size This defines how often a texture is repeated on a geometry with its given dimensions.

Asume a board that has the dimensions in front view 50×150 cm.

In case the patch size is 15×15 cm this patch repats 10 time in the height direction and 3.x times in the width dimension

In case the patch size is 50×50 cm this patch repats 3 time in the height direction and 1 times in the width dimension

Usually the maps provides the color of a cover or wood. For these two categories following patch sizes are assumed as default:

• Cover (fabric, leather, velvet, etc): 15x15cm patch
• Wood: 50x50cm patch

A diffuse map holds the diffuse color of a material. If it is defined, it replaces diffuse color given in the Parameters in the material.

• Diffuse maps are provided as JPG
• The standard image size is 1024×1024 px
• Diffuse maps mustn't hold color profile information

A roughness map holds the information for roughness of a material. It is provided as a gray scale texture, where black (0,0,0) is glossy and white (1,1,1) is rough.

Make sure not to mix up a roughness map with a glossiness map. They are inversed to each other.

A roughness map is not the same as a specular map and cannot be replaced with it 1 to 1

A normal map holds additional information to describe the surface of a geometry. Usually they are used together with low poly surfaces and enrich them with extra details.

The specific color of a normal map, given in R,G, B color, describes the direction of a corresponding vector, given in X,Y,Z coordinates.

Normal maps are provided as png.

This is a special map provided as a gray scale image. It is multiplyed with the diffuse map or color to create differences in the diffuse reflection.

In combination with a color, the gray scale 0.5 must represent the original incomming color. All values different from this will lighten or darken the diffuse color.

In detail the following process is done:

The tabele shows a test delta map with the gray scale values from black to white. The gradient in the middle has the neutral value 0.5 (#808080, 128) and will not change the diffuse color later.

image
hex	#000000	#404040	#808080	#c0c0c0	#ffffff
0-1	0	0.25	0.5	0.75	1
0-256	0	64	128	192	256

By multiplying this gray scale map with 2, the following factors will be used for each gradient.

image

As a last step a diffuse color will be multiplied to the delta result. This is the raw color.

image
hex	#e16823
0-1	r 0.882	g 0.408	b 0.137
0-256	r 225	g 104	b 35

This is the result. Notice the gradient in the middle is the same color as the raw color. The gradients on the left side darken the diffuse color. The gradients on the right side are lighten the diffuse color.

image

With this in minde, always make sure the diffuse color is representing the neutral color without any special map applied. It is not allowed to lighten or darken the diffuse map in a preprocessing and getting the original color by adding the diffuse delta map! This avoids wrong representations when this kind of map constellation is rendered by different renderers and material interpreters.

This kind of map does not need to have the same patch size as the diffuse map.

This kind of map can be used to create velvet effects.

This is a special map provided as a gray scale image. It is multiplyed with the current roughness of a surface to create differences on the surface roughness.

The gray scale 0.5 keeps the overall roughness unchanged. All values different from this will smooth or add more roughness onto the surface.

This kind of map does not need to have the same patch size as the diffuse map.

This kind of map can be used to create velvet effects.

This is a special map provided as a gray scale image. It holds information for transparency, where black is a transparency of 100% and white of 0%.

Alpha maps can be used to simulate single stitches of a seam.

For more detailed information see the OpenConfiguration material specification OpenConfiguration

Under certain cercumstances the naming convention for materials can differ from the standard behavior. For this a special texture mode is used.
For more information, check the IG.Gfx.AssetLoader texture modi and the suppliers guidelines.