Importing New Materials
LeMog – 3d Textures
This is a site from where you can download free images and use them either as pictures, perhaps for a backdrop, (there are caves), or import them into your materials palate enabling you to wrap the images around objects. There are some very useful images such as old woods, tree trunks, water, stone walls, wall paper and all sorts of fabrics. The site is at http://www.lemog.fr/lemog_textures/index.php
Or you can just google LeMog
Importing pictures into you materials pallet is easy, although I find the instructions in the manual confusing, so I’ve broken them down to my own list below.
- Copy the image into your ‘My Pictures’ folder.
- Via ‘View’ open your ‘Materials’ pallet.
- At the top of this pallet is an icon saying ‘Edit Pictures’ – select it.
- If you are adding a material to an existing ‘Category’, then select it.
- If you wish to create a new ‘Category’, select the ‘New Category’ icon to the right of the ‘Categories’ box.
- This will automatically open a dialogue box prompting you to name your new category.
- Select the ‘New Material’ box and name your material.
- Using the folder image to the right of the ‘Find Image’ box, locate the image.
- In the white box on the left hand side of the ‘Material Editor’ there are five icons.
- The top icon should read ‘Wrapped Image’.
- The bottom icon should read UV
- You may need to increase the scale of both the U and V. I generally deal in mms so I type 40 in each box initially to get an idea of scale, it can always be changed later.
A tip here to ensure that you see a preview is to click in the ‘Review’ box between each of the actions above. I don’t think that it should make a difference, but it does seem to.
I’d be very interested to hear of any similar sites, if anyone knows them. The annoying thing that I find with many of these sites is that they start off saying ‘free symbols’, but when you find the one you want, they try and sting you for a few quid.