Bricks

The Bricks texture is one of the many procedurally generated textures provided with Modo. Procedural textures are mathematically created at render-time, and therefore have no fixed resolution, they can be magnified nearly infinitely with no visual loss in detail. The Bricks texture can be addressed by its two zones, the Background and Foreground colors. The texture modulates from one zone to the other based on your settings. Each zone can have either a Value or a Color and Alpha. The applied zone is dependent on the Layer Effects to which the texture is applied. For instance, if the texture is applied as a Displacement, the Value settings would be used, whereas setting the texture effect to Diffuse Color would use the Color and Alpha settings for Background and Foreground. This shader provides a rectangular, brick-like pattern. The shader has the same controls as the Bath Tile shader but the aspect ratio of the bricks can be modified.

Note: For information regarding adding and working with Shader Tree item layers the Shader Tree topic.

Note: Due to the nature of this procedural, the default Solid projection method produces no result. When applied, you need to modify the projection in the associated Texture Locator to a different type. To select the texture locator, press the small + icon preceding the layer name in the Shader Tree and click on the layer once revealed. In the Properties Panel, change the Projection Type to a UV map (highly recommended) or choose one of the geometric projections, such as Planar, Cylindrical, Spherical, and so on, and size the texture accordingly.

Layer Properties

Enable	Toggles the effect of the layer on and off. This duplicates the functionality of toggling visibility in the Shader Tree. When disabled, the layer has no effect on the shading of the scene. However, Modo saves disabled layers with the scene, and they are persistent across Modo sessions.
Invert	Inverts the colors (RGB values) for the layer to produce a negative effect.
Blend Mode	Affects the blending between different layers of the same effect type. With this, you can stack several layers for different effects. For more about blending, see Layer Blend Modes.
Opacity	Changes the transparency of the current layer. If there are layers below this layer in the Shader Tree, reducing this value increasingly reveals the lower layers. Reducing the value always dims the effect of the layer.
Locator	Sets the association for the Texture Locator. Most texture layers have a Texture Locator that Modo automatically creates in the Item List. This defines the mapping of the texture (how Modo applies the texture) to the surface. You can specify alternate locators, but this is normally not required. Although you may want multiple texture items to share a single locator.
Projection Type	Defines how a texture/material is applied to a 3D surface. Types vary significantly in their effects. For a guide to each Projection Type see Projection Type Samples.
Projection Axis	The texture/material is projected down this axis. This applies to Planar, Cylindrical, Spherical, Cubic, Box, and, Light Probe projection types.

Bricks Properties

Tiles - Bricks
Regional Seed	The Seed value is the initial number used when generating the procedural values. Different Seed values produce different random variations and can be useful in changing the texture result, however, you need to use the same Seed value when it is necessary for items to retain the same variations.
Tile Distribution	Specifies the percentage of the surface covered by bricks.
Tile Stagger	Specifies the amount of staggering between brick rows. When the control is at a low value, the bricks line up vertically, with the brick rows becoming more staggered as the parameter is increased.
Grout Width	Specifies the amount of grout between the bricks.
Bevel Width	Specifies the width of the bevel on the bricks.
Brick Height	Determines the height of the individual bricks.
Brick Width	Determines the width of the individual bricks.
Size Controls
U Repeats	Determines the number of times the pattern repeats in the U direction (horizontally).
V Repeats	Determines the number of times the pattern repeats in the V direction (vertically).
Disturb Controls - Alters the look of the generated procedural. The noise layer distorts the base texture based on the Disturb Magnitude.
Disturb Noise Type	Specifies the look of the texture distortion, with several noise function types provided: • Perlin • Enhanced Perlin • Gradient • Value • Gradient Value • Impulse • Lattice • Bubble
Disturb Octaves	Similar to the Patch Levels setting, the Disturb Octaves value specifies the number of layers of noise when distorting the texture, in effect producing greater detail.
Disturb Magnitude	Specifies the strength of the distortion effect on the base procedural.
Disturb Scale	Specifies the size (scale) of the distortion effect on the base procedural.
Disturb Detail	Specifies the step size between each iteration of the noise used to disturb the texture.
Full 3D Distortion	Turns on full 3D distortion, which yields better results, but takes longer to render.
Output Controls
Lower Clip	Specifies a clip level for the Background Color/Value, truncating values beyond the defined setting. Combined with the Upper Clip value, you can apply this option to extend or contract the total range of values for the texture.
Upper Clip	Specifies a clip level for the Foreground Color/Value, truncating values beyond the defined setting. Combined with the Lower Clip value, you can apply this option to extend or contract the total range of values for the texture.
Bias	Increasing this value causes the texture to favor the foreground color over the background color, whereas decreasing the value causes the background color to be favored.
Gain	Similar to a gamma control that affects the falloff of the gradient ramp between the two color values. Setting the Gain to 100% creates a very sharp falloff effect, whereas setting the value to 0% creates a plateau around the value or color mid-point with sharp falloff on either extreme of the gradient.
Output Regions	When the Output Regions option is enabled, the procedural texture outputs random gray shades per region rather than outlines for tiles, providing a means to add random variety to the procedurally created texture. You can further control the amount of variation using the Regional HSV process layer.
Background Color/Value	Specifies the Color (or Value) of the texture's background area, which ramps toward the Foreground Color/Value.
Background Alpha	Specifies the Alpha transparency of the Background Color.
Background - Use Last Layer	When enabled, the Background Color area is completely transparent, revealing the shading results of any lower layers.
Foreground Color/Value	Specifies the Color (or Value) of the texture's foreground area, which ramps toward the Background Color/Value.
Foreground Alpha	Specifies the Alpha transparency of the Foreground Color.
Foreground - Use Last Layer	When enabled, the Foreground Color area is completely transparent, revealing the shading results of any lower layers.

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