Image Map Shader - Effects Tab

Image Map Shader - Effects Tab

Description
The Effects tab contains settings related to transparency and translucency.

Settings:

• Alpha as opacity: Check this to use the alpha channel of the image for opacity/transparency.
• Alpha as colour: If this is checked the alpha channel of the image replaces the RGB channels. This effectively displays the alpha channel as a greyscale image.
• Create transparency: If this is checked then the shader will generate transparency based on a colour from the image. The colour used for transparency is set with the Transparency key parameter.
• Transparency key: This sets the colour used to generate transparency. For example if you want green areas to be transparent you would set the alpha key to green.
• Key tolerance: This controls how many shades of colour similar to the Transparency key colour are used to generate opacity.
• Translucent: Check this to enable translucency. The slider to the right controls the amount of translucency. Translucency gives an effect of light filtering through a surface. As an example, you might use translucency on a leaf texture to simulate light passing through it. It's not the same thing as opacity/transparency. Translucency is explained in more detail here.
• Translucency tint: This colour tints the translucency effect. This is explained further here.

Back to: Image Map Shader

A shader is a program or set of instructions used in 3D computer graphics to determine the final surface properties of an object or image. This can include arbitrarily complex descriptions of light absorption and diffusion, texture mapping, reflection and refraction, shadowing, surface displacement and post-processing effects. In Terragen 2 shaders are used to construct and modify almost every element of a scene.

A parameter is an individual setting in a node parameter view which controls some aspect of the node.