V-Ray Triplanar

This page contains information about the V-Ray Triplanar.

Overview

The V-Ray Triplanar texture allows quick assignment of bitmap and other 2D textures on objects that don't have suitable UV coordinates. The texture works by projecting one or more textures along the object-space axes depending on the surface normals of the shaded object.

The texture works both for colors and bump maps.

Parameters

Texture Mode – Specifies whether to use one or three textures for the different projection axes. See the example for more.

Same Texture On All Axes – Projects the same texture along each local axis.
Different Texture On Each Axis – Uses a different texture along each axis.
Cubic Projection – Uses a different texture along the X, Y, Z, -X, -Y, and -Z axes.

Texture X – The texture to project along the X axis when the Texture Mode is set to Different Texture On Each Axis or Cubic Projection.

Texture Y – The texture to project along the Y axis when the Texture Mode is set to Different Texture On Each Axis or Cubic Projection.

Texture Z – The texture to project along the Z axis when the Texture Mode is set to Different Texture On Each Axis or Cubic Projection.

Texture (-X) – The texture to project along the -X axis when the Texture Mode is set to Cubic Projection.

Texture (-Y) – The texture to project along the -Y axis when the Texture Mode is set to Cubic Projection.

Texture (-Z) – The texture to project along the -Z axis when the Texture Mode is set to Cubic Projection.

Size – Adjusts the size of the texture. For more information, please see the Size example below.

Blend – Controls the blend between the different projections. Lower values produce sharper transitions between projections. For more information, please see the Blend example below.

Frame Offset – Moves the point relative to which the textures are projected.

Texture Rotation – Specifies rotation (in degrees) for the projected textures around the respective projection axis. When overridden by a texture map in the texture_rotation_map input socket, the expected values are in the range of [0-1]. Otherwise, the expected values range is [0-360]. If the Texture Rotation option is enabled under the Randomization parameters, non-zero components of this parameter specify increments for the rotation. For more information, please see the Texture Rotation example below.

Treat Rotation Input As Degrees – When enabled, the input for the texture_rotation_map input socket expects values in degrees.

When the Texture Rotation is a vector, i.e. no texture is plugged into the texture_rotation_map input socket, the range of values it can receive is 0-360 degrees. However, the Texture Rotation can be overridden by a texture map in the texture_rotation_map socket. The texture rotation map receives values in the range 0-1. Enabling the Treat Rotation Input As Degrees option forces the texture rotation map to receive values in degrees.

Use Displaced Surface – Uses the displaced geometry to calculate triplanar mapping if there is displacement. When disabled, the triplanar uses the geometry before displacement.

Texture Offset – Randomizes the texture offset based on the Random Mode.

Texture Rotation – Randomizes the texture rotation based on the Random Mode. The rotation can be locked to specific increments (i.e. 45 degrees only, or 90 degrees only) by setting the Texture Rotation components to the desired increments for the different axes.

Frame Rotation – Randomly rotates the entire projection space based on the Random Mode.

Projection Axis – Randomly changes the projection axes based on the Random Mode.

Random Mode – Specifies how to generate the random seed needed for the various randomizations: For more information, see the Randomizations example below.

Face Material ID – Computes the seed based on the face material ID of the mesh. The primitive attribute "i@face_mtlIDs" should be added to geometry for this mode to work. Otherwise, the value is assumed 0 for all faces.
Object Render ID – Computes the seed based on the render ID of the objects.
Particle ID – Computes the seed based on the particle ID.
Instance ID – Computes the seed based on the instanced ID.
User Attribute – Computes the seed based on the used attribute ID.
Auto – Computes the seed based on a unique and random ID for each object.

User Attribute – Specifies which user attribute to use the randomization source.

Transform – Specifies the projection space:

Local Object – The projection is done in local object space. When the object is moved/rotated/scaled, the texture moves with it.
Reference Object – The projection is done in the local space of another node in the scene. If no node is specified, world space is used. This mode is useful when several objects need to be mapped with the same triplanar texture and to show consistent mapping.

Node – Specifies a node when Transform is set to Reference Object.

Example: Texture mode

In this example, a cube with different chaos product logos is placed in a mirrored room. A V-Ray Material with a TriPlanar texture as a Diffuse Color is applied to the cube.
When the Texture Mode is set to Same texture on all axes, we can place one texture and apply it to all the sides of the cube.
When the Texture mode is set to Different texture on each axis, we can apply a different texture to each axis of the cube. The Texture Rotation option can rotate the texture on each axis individually, but it cannot flip the texture. In this example, we only rotate along the Z-axis.
When the Texture Mode is set to Cubic Projection, we can apply different textures to each direction - positive and negative, of the axes of the cube. We can modify the look of each direction individually.
In the last image, we want to change the orientation of the Chaos, Cosmos, and Phoenix logos in the reflections. To do this, we need to flip them. The Chaos logo - vertically and the other two - horizontally. We use the V-Ray Image File's UV tab. We set its Coverage V parameter to -1 for the Chaos logo, and its Coverage U parameter to -1 for the Cosmos and Phoenix logos. The Repeat U, V parameters can also be used to achieve the same effect.