Available in TurboCAD Pro, Platinum and Deluxe only
Each material has five categories of parameters you can set: Pattern, Reflectance, Transparency, Texture and Wrapping. Not all categories are used for each material, only those that are relevant.
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Warning: If the selection arrow is the specified option for the preview object, and no object is selected, you will get a warning that a preview cannot be generated. This will also happen if the selection arrow is the default and you open the Render Manager with no object selected.
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Options
The first set of parameters are the Options. This includes the RED file path.
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Refractive Caustics: Will Refractive Caustics be calculated and displayed for this material.
Pattern
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Note: TurboCAD has several defined patterns, but if you want to apply your own image as a pattern, see Creating a New Material.
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If set to color, that color will be the diffusion color of the material.
If a texture map is selected, the mapped image will be used to color the material.
Image/texture Maps
texture maps are images used in pattern, reflection, transmission and bump to establish the pattern of the effect. All texture maps are assumed to be square. If the image used is not square it will be stretched/compacted into a square texture map, possibly deforming the texture.
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This Rotates the texture map by the number of degrees specified.
Rotated by 30 degrees
Reflectance
Reflections can be anisotropic, Fresnel-style and glossy. All those effects need dedicated parameters to be modeled.
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Example of an applied texture map for reflection with anisotropy
Anisotropy
The anisotropy parameter varies in [0, 1] and describes how the reflection is oriented regarding to the surface orientation. Some real-life materials are well-known anisotropic ones: CD-ROM surface or hairs and fur for example. By default, a value of 0.5 makes the material isotropic (i.e. reflections do not vary with the orientation of the surface). Make the value smaller or greater to slightly modify the way the light is reflected at the material surface.
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The Samples Count changes the refinement of the anisotropy significantly.
Glossiness
The glossiness parameter controls how much the reflections are blurry. The samples parameter controls the noise level of the glossy reflections. Differences in the Glossiness setting can be seen below.
Glossiness at 0.01
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Glossiness at 0.05
Glossiness at 0.99
Fresnel Reflection
Fresnel support is essential as it is the way real surfaces interact with the light. The strength of the reflection generally depends on the viewing angle (the angle between the observer and the surface normal).
Fresnel reflection OFF
Fresnel reflection ON
Specular Highlights
Note: This feature has been deprecated as redundant and will be excised from future versions of the RedSDK editor.
Transparency
This category is relevant for transparent glass and plastic materials. For example, "Eroded" transparency simulates a bumpy or uneven glass surface.
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As for the reflections, transmission can be glossy or not. Therefore, the same glossiness controlling parameters that are available for reflections are available for transmission.
IOR (Index of Refraction)
What makes the transmission effect acting like a magnifying/minifying glass is the Index of Refraction (IOR) of the material. Users can enter the value they need in the IOR field of choose one in the drop-down list (amongst various real-life material IORs).
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Note: IOR has zero affect when transmission uses a texture map.
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Bump Map
This category enables you to make a surface appear rough or bumpy. The rendering engine simulates shadows along the surface to create the textured effect. For example, you can define a Leather texture.
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The supplied texture map is automatically converted to a normal map and therefore must be given in a classical RGB format to encode the elevation. The amount of bump can be tuned through the scale factor. White (RGB 0, 0, 0) equals the highest points in the map, and while Black (RGB 256, 256, 256) equals lowest points in the map.
Displacement
This category enables you to make a surface rough or bumpy. Unlike bump maps, Displacement actually alter the geometry used to render the object.
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