How does it works?

We assume you know how to install a Lightwave plugin, so we will just jump over this, and start right away with the explanation of our tool.

Lets's take, as an example, the case where we want to texture some object. As always with Lightwave, the texture process starts with the texture editor window you get by clicking on of those "T" buttons in the surface editor panel. Let's start with the color channel.

Start choosing "Procedural Texture" as the layer type and "VisualTexture Color" as the "Procedural Type".

You will see that a button "Texture Editor" will appear instead of some parameters for the procedural texture.

Once you press the "Texture Editor" button, the main VisualTexture window will pop-up. On the left hand side you will find the component library (which also provides a preview of the component) and on the right side the working area.

Creating a texture involves three different tasks:

1. Choosing components from the component library.
2. Linking this component with other components.
3. Changing the component properties.

Maybe one of the most difficult task is choosing one of the many components we offer. Some will be pretty straight forward to choose from, and others you will need some experience in order to discover how they can be used. Anyhow, this is just matter of trail and error, which is half the fun !

Linking components is matter of dragging the thumbnail of one of them over another. As soon as you are dragging one component over another one, a link menu will pop-up and you will be able to choose which parameter you want to link to.

Finally, the properties panel allows you to really start tweaking components. By changing the properties you can really change the appearance of each component. Starting from simple things like changing the base colors, to more sophisticated things, like with this example, choosing how many rivets need to be drawn.

Some times changing a parameter can drastically change the behavior of the component. Here again, you will need a trial and error approach, at the beginning, to see what each parameter effects.

As VisualTexture contains so many components and in each component you have lots of parameters to play with, we offer online help which gives you an explanation of the component along with its parameters. The same information is found in the PDF manual which you will be able to print and keep on the side of the keyboard while working with VisualTexture.