Material Manager

Instructions for use

The Material Manager provides a set of Local Material Library with built-in materials available to the Model Data. At the same time, you can manage the materials in the material library, such as adding new material files, Delete Material files, and setting the style for Material Settings. In addition, Material Manager also supports browsing the material of Model Data and modifying the material of Model Object.

Operation steps

Image: Material Manager "Panel

The full name of PBR is Physically Based Rendering, which is based on physical rendering and can reflect the texture of the model more realistically.

  1. Right-click Datasource in Workspace Manager and select Open File Datasource "to open the Datasource containing the Model Dataest.
  2. Select Model Dataest, right-click the Add to New Spherical Scene ", select the Model Dataset Layer in Layer Manager, and right-click the Jump to Layer".
  3. Click the Material menu button in the Model Operation group on the 3D Geographic Design tab, and the Material Manager "dialog box pops up under Current Windows, as shown in the following figure:
  4. Material Manager is divided into four parts: material library list, material list, Parameter Settings and effect preview. The material library list displays the local, Model Dataest and user-defined material libraries; the material list displays all materials in the currently selected material library; Parameter Settings supports the setting of the base color, metallicity, self-illumination, normal and other attributes of the material; The effect preview supports real-time display of the effect of the material after parameter adjustment.
  5. Material library list:
    • Local Material Library: Some built-in PBR materials are available in the Local Material Library, including materials for themes such as Concrete, Masonry, Metal, and Stone.
    • New Material Group: supports the customization of a new material folder in the Local Material Library.
    • Model Dataset Layer: Displays the Model Dataest opened in the current scene.
    • Refresh: Refreshes the contents of the current material library list.
    • Rename: Right click the "Local Material Library" and "Model Dataset Layer" and the material folder inside it, and select "Rename" to set a new name for the currently selected material library or material folder.
    • Delete Folder: Right click the Local Material Library "and Model Dataset Layer" and the material folder inside it, and select Delete Folder "to delete the currently selected folder.
  6. Material List: Click a material folder in the material library list with the left mouse button to display all materials in the current folder in the material list. Right click on the pop-up function list (including Rename, Delete material, Copy material path, Export selected material, Assign material to selected object and Assign Materials to selected layer) to edit and use the material. Add a new material to the current material folder by right-clicking in the blank space of the material list and selecting the corresponding function in the pop-up function list (including Import Material and New Material).
    • Rename: Gives the current Material Settings a new name.
    • Delete Material: deletes the currently selected material file from the current material library.
    • Copy material path: Support Copy Current material file storage path to the clipboard.
    • Export selected material: The selected material file can be exported to the specified path.
    • Assign material to selected object: Supports assigning a material to a Model Object. First select the Model Object to be assigned to the material in the scene, and then select the target material and right-click to assign the material to the selected Model Object.
    • Assign Materials to selected layer: supports assigning materials to the Piple Line layer. First select the Piple Line layer to be assigned the material in Layer Manager, and then select the material. Right click the mouse and select this function to assign the material to the selected pipeline layer.
    • Import Material: External materials can be imported into the current material folder for use by models and Piple Lines. Import of material files in *.xml and *.json formats is supported.
    • New Material: Creates a new material file in the current material folder and supports properties such as base color, metallicity, self-illumination, and normal for the new Material Settings.
  7. PBR material Parameter Settings: including base color, metal roughness, self-illumination, normal, occlusion, mask, and Advance Settings. The parameter range can be controlled through the "Simple" and "Detailed" radio buttons: select the "Simple" radio button to set the four parameters of base color, metal roughness, self-illumination and normal; select the "Detailed" radio button to set all the parameters.

    The base color is the apparent color of the object itself, without any lighting effects such as shadows, highlights, etc. You can set the base color of an object by specifying the appearance color directly or by adding a Texture Map that characterizes the base color.

    Metal/roughness (metallic mode) is a common workflow of PBR material, which controls the reflectivity and photoresponse intensity of the object surface through two parameters of metallicity and roughness.

    When the scene is dark, it can make a part of the object appear to be illuminated from the inside (such as the window on the building), which is often used in the production of night scene effect.

    A

    normal map is a special texture, often with a blue tint to the visible color, that lets you add surface details, such as bumps, grooves, and scratches, to a model, adding depth to the model.

    Ambient Occlusion texture, which appears as a grayscale map with white indicating areas that should receive full indirect light and black indicating no indirect light. Simulates the self-shadowing that occurs in a crevice, used to increase light and dark detail on the model.

    At present, it is only used in Unreal Engine to beautify the fine model workflow and make the night scene self-luminous. For specific methods, please refer to the SuperMap Hi-Fi 3D SDK for UnrealHelp and the special topic of fine Model Data beautification process. And the effect of Mask texture can only be seen in Unreal Engine.

    • Base Color (BaseColor) of Base Color material
      Figure: Example
      • Texture settings: Texture Map files that characterize the color of an object's surface.
      • Color Settings: Specifies the object surface color.
      • Translational motion
        • Period: The time taken for a single translation.
        • U: Speed of texture motion along the X axis (set to a positive value to move against the X axis; set to a negative value to move along the X axis).
        • V: The speed at which the texture moves along the Y axis (set to a positive value to move against the Y axis; set to a negative value to move along the Y axis).
      • Scale motion
        • Period: The time taken for a single zoom.
        • U: Scale speed of the texture along the X axis (set to a positive value, compressing against the X axis; set to a negative value, stretching along the X axis).
        • V: Scale speed of the texture along the Y axis (set to a positive value, compressing against the Y axis; set to a negative value, stretching along the Y axis).
    • Metallic Roughness When

      no metallicity roughness texture is used, the effect of metallicity roughness is determined only by the metallicity coefficient and the roughness coefficient. When using the Metallicity Roughness texture, the effect of the Metallicity Roughness is determined by the result of the texture multiplied by the coefficient.

      Figure: Example of the effect of metallicity as a function of metallicity value (the effect of metallicity at 0 roughness, from left to right, is 0, 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 0.8, 1 metallicity)
      Figure: Example of the roughness effect as a function of the roughness value (at metallicity 0, the roughness is 0, 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 0.8, 1 from left to right)
      of transformer
      Figure: Metal effect
      • Texture settings: Use the Texture Map to control the variation of metallicity and roughness on the surface of the material. Among them, the R channel in the texture is used to control the metallicity, and the G channel is used to control the roughness. When using Texture Map, the factor of metallicity and roughness is set to 1.
      • Metallicity coefficient: It controls the degree of "like metal" on the surface of the material. The value range is 0 ~ 1. The larger the value is, the higher the metal level of the material is. The more metallic the surface, the more the surface color is driven by environmental reflections, and the more blurred the appearance of the material itself. The lower the surface metal, the less affected by the reflection environment, and the more obvious the appearance color of the material itself.
      • Roughness coefficient: It controls the roughness of the material surface. The value range is 0 ~ 1. The larger the value is, the greater the roughness of the material is. The roughness of a material affects how much light is reflected: the rougher the surface, the higher the micro-surface detail, and the fuzzier the object's ambient reflection; the smoother the surface, the higher the reflectivity, and the clearer the object's ambient reflection.
    • Self-emission (Emission) When Selt-luminous Texture

      is not used, the effect of self-illumination is determined only by the self-illumination color value. When using Selt-luminous Texture, the effect of self-illumination is determined by the result of multiplying the Selt-luminous Texture by the color value.

      Image: Selt-luminous Texture effect
      • Texture settings: Self-illumination map texture files.
      • Color Value: Controls the color and intensity of self-illumination on the surface of the material.
      • Translational motion
        • Period: The time taken for a single translation.
        • U: Speed of texture motion along the X axis (set to a positive value to move against the X axis; set to a negative value to move along the X axis).
        • V: The speed at which the texture moves along the Y axis (set to a positive value to move against the Y axis; set to a negative value to move along the Y axis).
      • Scale motion
        • Period: The time taken for a single zoom.
        • U: Scale speed of the texture along the X axis (set to a positive value, compressing against the X axis; set to a negative value, stretching along the X axis).
        • V: Scale speed of the texture along the Y axis (set to a positive value, compressing against the Y axis; set to a negative value, stretching along the Y axis).
      • Normal
    • (Normal)
      Figure: Comparison of normal mapping effect (the left image has no normal mapping, while the right image has normal mapping)
      • Texture settings: Normal map texture files.
      • Intensity Factor: The degree of influence of the normal map texture.
    • Occlusion
      Figure: Occlusion map effect
      • Texture settings: Occlusion map texture files.
      • Intensity Factor: The degree of influence of the occlusion map texture.
    • Mask: Support Set Mask mapping. of PBR using multiple textures
      Figure: Example
      Figure: Overall material effect
      • Texture settings: Occlusion map texture files.
    • Advance Settings
      • Alpha Rendering Mode: This parameter allows you to Select whether the Object uses transparency, and if so, which type of Blend Mode to use.
        Figure: Hollow out effect
        • Opaque: This is the default setting for normal solid objects with no transparent areas.
        • Stencil/Mask: In this mode, there are no translucent areas and the texture is either fully transparent or fully opaque. There is no need to make complex models, through the basic color texture with transparency, you can make complex hollow effects.
        • Transparent: blend rendering based on the texture of the material or the Alpha value in the material color with the background. The larger the Alpha value, the less clear the background and the clearer the foreground after blending, and vice versa. Works well for rendering realistic transparent materials, such as clear plastic or glass.
      • Alpha filter threshold setting: in the hollowed-out rendering mode, the area below the transparency is displayed as fully opaque; the area above the transparency is displayed as fully transparent.
      • Double-sided: Whether to enable double-sided rendering. If not, single-sided rendering will be used. Single-sided rendering means that only one side of the model surface is rendered, not the back side. This means that only the surface of the model facing the camera is affected by lighting and materials, while the surface of the model facing away from the camera is not rendered. This way of rendering works well in most cases, especially when the back of the model is not visible or has no important details. Single-sided rendering can improve rendering performance and reduce unnecessary computational overhead. Two-sided rendering renders both sides of the model surface, that is, regardless of which side the model is facing. Two-sided rendering increases rendering overhead.
  8. Normal Edit Material:
    • Material color: Set the material color through the drop-down color panel.
    • Transparency: Adjust the transparency by entering a value directly or by clicking the right arrow and sliding the slider that pops up. The default transparency value is 0, which means that the layer is completely opaque. As the value increases, the layer becomes more and more transparent. When the transparency value is set to 100, the layer is completely transparent. Transparency values range from 0 to 100.
    • Texture editing: provides add, replace, delete, and set buttons.
      Image: Material Settings "Panel
      • Add: Select the added Picture File in the pop-up "Open" dialog box.
      • Replace: Select Picture File in the pop-up Open dialog box to replace the selected texture.
      • Delete: Deletes the selected texture.
      • Settings: Set the texture parameters of the map in the pop-up panel.
        • Support Texture Coordinate Offset, Texture Coordinate Scale and Texture Coordinate Rotation.
        • Export: supports exporting textures to PNG format.
  9. Material Preview: Select a material to preview the effect of the current material mapping on the Model Object in real time in the Material Preview window (you can select the shape of the mapping model through the drop-down box, which supports three types: cube, sphere and cylinder). In addition, in the process of setting the Material Parameters, you can also preview the set material effect in real time. When the effect is adjusted to the appropriate effect, you can click Apply to complete the editing of the material style. If the material of the Model Dataest is edited, it will be directly "applied" to the Model Object; Click Reset to return the parameters to their original state.

Precautions

  1. "Assign material to selected object" works only with Model Data; "Assign Materials to selected layer" works only with Piple Line.
  2. Pan Motion and Scale Motion support sets the speed of pan motion or scale changes in the U and V directions, in the range of Texture Unit/sec. There is also support for setting the period of texture panning or zooming in seconds.