Materials with Multiple Colors???

[1a2b3c4d]

Can I create materials with multiple colors? What I want is a material that is a gradient from blue to bright green.

[phlegm_thrower]

i don't think it's possible to do that in Swift... however... i think u can do that in Flash...

[RUSHVision]

Sure you can do it in Swift3D. One thing you can do is to go to Setup>Materials and click on Add and you will have three different colors to work with...Diffuse, Ambient and Highlight. This may or may not get you the effect you are looking for.

Another thing you can do is to make your object blue and then put a green light on it. Playing around with these two techniques should get you pretty close to what you want.

[phlegm_thrower]

i don't think the material tweaking will do any good... if u use green color for diffuse, u'll have green object and if u put blue as the ambient, you'll get green object with blue tint (the material will look like a mix of blue/green) and i think u can discount the highlight all together since it's more for light reflection effect and glossiness of the material...

you might be able to have different material on different surface (only if it's text or an extrusion) but not mutiple colors on the same material like 1234 wanted...

i've tried the lighting trick RUSH but i never get even color and the gradient is weird... im not sure wat kinda effect 1234 wants so i dunno if that trick will be sufficient or not...
[Edited by phlegm_thrower on 08-03-2002 at 05:17 AM]

[RUSHVision]

So by playing around with the techniques I suggested I was able to come up with what is below. Is this anything like what you wanted?

[phlegm_thrower]

my bleeding pride aside i learn something new yet again today thanks Rush...

this is the result i managed to get...



no matter wat i tried the ambient color always come out stronger than the diffuse color... in this sample, i got rid of all the trackball lights and use 2 scene spotlights to illuminate the object otherwise the ambient color would simply dominate. i also couldn't get the green color to come out brighter coz if i add more lights, the green color will cover the whole plane.

i tried to get the gradient to look as liner as i could but around the intersection of the plane u can sort of see the green color got weaker coz it's a round spotlight after all. i tried to add one more spotlight at 45 degree angle coz i thought that would cover it but instead the light defined the face of the plane enabling me to see them separated by a faint blue line. i could probably get around that by using more detailed mesh but then i thought it's not worth it.

mind if i pick your brain a bit further Rush?? it's a lot easier to make radial gradient on a sphere but i would like to be able to create a more linear gradient effect on flat surface. any ideas?

[phlegm_thrower]

oh one more thing... wat if i wanna have gradient in an animation where i need to move objects, lights and camera?

also if i want only ONE object to have it but with other objects bunch together, how should i do it without having the lights affecting them???

[1a2b3c4d]

Thanks for all the responses. I'll give them a try.

What I'm trying to do is create a panel that is blue on its main surfaces but with a blue-to-green gradient on its edges.

I'll let you know if I get it working. Thanks again.

[RUSHVision]

1a2b3c4d ~
Here is an example of a panel that might match your description.

.

phlegm_thrower ~
Yes, it is pretty difficult to get this effect using just the different colors for the Material. It's a bit of a challenge to create the effect at all, actually. You are going in the right direction with using Spot Lights, but you might want to try adding a blue Point Light to keep the green from overwhelming the scene. I ended up adding a fair number of lights to get the effect I wanted. You are also correct in that adjust the mesh smoothness and quality will affect how the gradient is rendered. One of the biggest problems I had was getting a clean render even using the mesh gradient setting. It is difficult to get an even gradient. The area gradient setting would be my next choice, but it doesn't seem to pick up the color variations very accurately.

As for rendering a scene where only one object has the gradient, you would probably want to render that object separately from the rest. Tough to do this kind of thing in an animated scene, though.

[phlegm_thrower]

Thanks Rush

[Ask The Geezer]

Hmm, I did this with 4 targeted spots on each side, and two area lights, blue to the right, green to the left and used area gradient shading on render. The target lights were evenly space, and the area lights were in the center of the edge, but the gradient shades to the corners on render, which isn't what it looks like on edit. And how do you add a pic in a post?

http://64.21.153.144/gradient.swf

[phlegm_thrower]

that looks nice but... if it's gonna look 2D like that, u can just do it in Flash straight away... guaranteed to be a LOT simpler (just draw a rectangle and fill 45 degree angle linear gradient )

[Ask The Geezer]

Oh yeah, I know, I just wanted to see what I could do with the lights. I've only had this puppy since Thursday.

I got some ideas though, on your blue/green brick, why not render it with the lines showing? That might offset the color more. But it's late, and I'll be dreaming this tonight, pondering RUSHVision's subtle reminder that this is all illusion and playing around with my new toy all day tomorrow. Never know what might happen.

[phlegm_thrower]

have fun with it... i dunno about u but im still having fun with it after all this time (couple of months?? )

[1a2b3c4d]

Rush,

Thanks for continuing to offer suggestions. I think I have not explained clearly what I'm trying to do.

Below is the panel I am trying to create in Swift 3D; this static version of the panel was done in Flash.

http://www.viswebsys.com/se/PanelAlone.swf

Thanks again to Rush and everyone else for their suggestions.

[RUSHVision]

Originally posted by iaskwhy
And how do you add a pic in a post?

Check out this link:
http://board.flashkit.com/board/index.php?action=bbcode

[Ask The Geezer]

thanks Rush. Let's see if this works:

Nope, don't work for swf. Anyway, here is a gradient fill revolving brick. It also shows the gradient in a static image. Pretty neat.

http://64.21.153.144/blugrnbrik.swf

[RUSHVision]

iaskwhy ~

You're close. Unfortunately, .SWFs have been disabled until certain security issues have been addressed. I have no idea when this will be, but until then we can only use static images in our posts. If you want to post a .SWF, then you need to upload it to your server and provide a link to it as you did originally.

If you want to add an image, the only thing you would have to change is the extension on the file name as you have it, and upload a .JPG version of your .SWF to your server. Let me know if I haven't been clear enough in my explanation.

[RUSHVision]

That looks pretty good. Nice job

[Ask The Geezer]

One more time.