Titania X3D Editor

Bring Colours to Your Life.

Titania v4.1.1

Bring Colours to Your Life.

X3D Reference

Mapping textures

Motivation

You can model every tiny texture detail of a world using a vast number of colored faces:

  • Takes a long time to write the X3D
  • Takes a long time to draw

Use a trick instead:

  • Take a picture of the real thing
  • Paste that picture on the shape, like sticking on a decal

This technique is called Texture Mapping

Using image textures

Image texture:

  • Uses a single image from a file in one of these formats:
GIF 8-bit lossless compressed images
1 transparency color
JPEG Usually a poor choice for texture mapping
8-bit thru 24-bit lossy compressed images
No transparency support
PNG An adequate choice for texture mapping
8-bit thru 24-bit lossless compressed images
8-bit transparency per pixel
Best choice

Using pixel textures

Pixel texture:

  • A single image, given in the VRML file itself
  • The image is encoded using hex
    • Up to 10 bytes per pixel
    • Very inefficient
    • Only useful for very small textures
    • Stripes
    • Checkerboard patterns

Using movie textures

Movie texture:

  • A movie from an MP4 file
  • The movie plays back on the textured shape

Syntax: Appearance

An Appearance node describes overall shape appearance:

  • texture - texture source

Syntax: ImageTexture

An ImageTexture node selects a texture image for texture mapping:

  • url - texture image file URL

Syntax: PixelTexture

A PixelTexture node specifies texture image pixels for texture mapping:

  • image - texture image pixels
  • Image data - width, height, bytes/pixel, pixel values

Syntax: MovieTexture

A MovieTexture node selects a texture movie for texture mapping:

  • url - texture movie file URL
  • When to play the movie, and how quickly (like a TimeSensor node)

Using materials with textures

  • Color textures override the color in a Material node
  • Grayscale textures multiply with the Material node color
    • Good for colorizing grayscale textures
  • If there is no Material node, the texture is applied emissively

Using transparent textures

Texture images can include color and transparency values for each pixel:

  • Pixel transparency is also known as alpha

Pixel transparency enables you to make parts of a shape transparent:

  • Windows, grillwork, holes
  • Trees, clouds

Summary

  • A texture is like a decal pasted to a shape
  • Specify the texture using an ImageTexture, PixelTexture, or MovieTexture node in an Appearance node
  • Color textures override material, grayscale textures multiply
  • Textures with transparency create holes