Page 1012 - Chief Architect Reference Manual

Chief Architect X10 Reference Manual

About Materials

The materials that are assigned to objects in appearance in rendered and ray trace views
Chief Architect perform two important roles: by making it appear contoured instead of flat,
• They determine what the surfaces of or rough instead of smooth or glossy.
objects look like in 3D views. Materials seen in the Standard, Physically
• They influence how objects are calculated Based, Duotone, Painting, and Watercolor
in the Materials List. See “Materials Rendering Techniques may be affected by
Lists” on page 1263. these material maps:
Materials are stored in the Materials catalog • Bump maps add the appearance of height
in the Library Browser and can be applied to differences to a material - for example, on
objects in either of two ways: bricks, stone, or textiles. In a bump map,
dark areas of the image correspond to low
• Using the Material Painter . points in the bump map, and light areas
correspond to high points.
• In an object’s specification dialog. See
“Materials Panel” on page 1017. • Normal maps assign three dimensional
data to the material on a surface, allowing
Patterns and Textures lighting effects to be created - for exam-
ple, along mortar or grout lines. In
In Chief Architect, materials have two normal maps, multiple colors are used to
attributes that determine what they look like indicate surface direction.
in 3D views: Textures and Patterns.
• Occlusion maps indicate which parts of a
• Textures are created using special image texture receive more ambient light and
files that tile seamlessly when applied to which parts receive less. In occlusion
surfaces and are visible in ray trace views maps, light areas receive more ambient
and most Rendering Techniques. See “In light while dark areas receive less.
Rendered Views” on page 1059.
• Roughness maps define areas of varying
• Patterns are composed of CAD lines and roughness or glossiness that affect how
are seen in Technical Illustration, Line light reflects off those areas. Roughness
Drawing and Vector Views. See “Render- maps are greyscale where white is very
ing Techniques” on page 1106. rough, black very smooth.
Unlike textures, patterns are associated with • Metal maps define areas within a single
a Type that determines if and how materials texture that are metallic. Metal maps are
are calculated in the Materials List. greyscale images in which black is not
metallic but every other shade is.
Material Maps
All of these map types can be assigned to a
Material maps are specially produced image material in the Define Material dialog. See
files that can add realism to a material’s

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