You know what they say: presentation is everything! Here are some useful tips to make your models look as fancy as this awesome model by Warwick Stephen!
1. Bump Maps PLUS
Bump maps are a great way to add a great amount of detail to you models, they look specially well on materials with some level of specularity since they "break" the overly-clean look of a specular highlight.
p3d.in's implementation of bump maps adds almost no overhead to materials. Even cooler is to reuse the same texture that you use for diffuse or specular as a bump. This way you will add no extra loading time to your model while making it look much more awesome!
2. Alpha Maps PLUS
Alpha maps allow you to control the transparency of your models with a transparent .png texture. On real time applications it's a bit tricky to make this work just right, that's why there is an Alpha Clip value that you can increase to get some alpha textures to behave!
3. ShadeSpheres
ShadeSpheres are a great way to reproduce complex materials in a very simple way. In fact you can create your own shadespheres! Just make an orthogonal render of a sphere (no gaps in borders) of your favorite material in your 3D application of choice, save it as .jpg and it's ready to use in p3d.in
p3d.in let's you use a single shadeshere for your entire model or use different ones for each material. Another cool trick is the ability to tweak the ShadeSphere color with HSL controls, this means you can personalize your materials to be the exact color you want even if the shadesphere is originally different.
Shadespheres are also one of our fastest materials so feel free to over use them!
4. Colorize your Textures
The color picker is not only there for plain color materials. It will actually affect your diffuse texture color (and others). A single texture can be reused in many different materials with color variations and it will be a secret between p3d.in and you!
5. Pick the Right Angle
First impressions last! Make sure your model is facing at it's best angle. Use the inbuilt Fix Orientation tool to correct any bad alignment that might have come from your 3D application. Next set your camera angle right where you want it and use the Default Camera tool to set it as default.
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the p3d.in team
