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> Designing Visuals, Rendering, and Graphics > Materials > Material Functions > Material Function Reference > Procedurals

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Procedurals

Procedurally generated textures and operations, such as the creation of normal maps from existing height maps.

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Procedural Functions

The Procedural functions provide a quick way to make simple procedurally generated textures and masks. This saves memory over having to use imported textures.

Procedural Functions

The following is a list of all the functions underneath the Procedurals category.

GeneratedBand

The GeneratedBand function generates a horizontal or vertical band from the default TextureCoordinates.


Item	Description
Inputs
Width (Scalar)	A 0-1 value that calculates the width of the procedural band. The default is 0.25.
Sharpness (Scalar)	This controls the falloff of the band's edges. A setting of 100 will produce a very sharp band with aliasing.
Offset (Scalar)	This value will slide the band around the texture space.
Direction Switch (StaticBool)	Setting this to true will cause the band to be vertical instead of horizontal. Default is false , or horizontal.
Compare (Scalar)	This is the value the texture coordinate is compared against in order to produce the band. The default is 0.5.
Input Coordinates (Vector2)	Takes in a custom set of UVs rather than the default ones already built into the function.

GeneratedOffsetBands

Like the GeneratedBand function, GeneratedOffsetBands creates procedurally generated bands of texture across the UV space. However, this function can produce multiple bands instead of just one.


Item	Description
Inputs
Width (Scalar)	A 0-1 value that calculates the width of the procedural band. The default is 0.25.
Sharpness (Scalar)	This controls the falloff of the band's edges. A setting of 100 will produce a very sharp band with aliasing.
Offset (Scalar)	This value will slide the band around the texture space.
Direction Switch (StaticBool)	Setting this to true will cause the band to be vertical instead of horizontal. Default is false , or horizontal.
Compare (Scalar)	This is the value the texture coordinate is compared against in order to produce the band. The default is 0.5.
Bands (Scalar)	This modifies the total number of bands.
Input Coordinates (Vector2)	Takes in a custom set of UVs rather than the default ones already built into the function.

NormalFromHeightmap

This function serves as a quick way to make a normal map out of an existing black and white heightmap, rather than having to load a separate texture into memory.

This function takes in a TextureObject (T2d) expression node, rather than a TextureSample.


Item	Description
Inputs
Coordinates (Vector2)	Takes in the coordinates for proper scaling/tiling of the heightmap.
Height Bias (Scalar)	This is the spread used to derive a proper height from the heightmap. Default value is 0.005.
Height (Scalar)	This controls the final strength of the normal map. Default is 8.
Heightmap In (TextureObject)	Takes in the heightmap texture from a TextureObject expression node.

NormalFromHeightmapChaos

The NormalFromHeightMapChaos function takes a heightmap and pans it in 4 directions, then blends the result back together to make a chaotically animated normal map.

This function is considered expensive and should be used with care.


Item	Description
Inputs
Coordinates (Vector2)	Takes in the coordinates for proper scaling/tiling of the heightmap.
Height Bias (Scalar)	This is the spread used to derive a proper height from the heightmap. Default value is 0.005.
Height (Scalar)	This controls the final strength of the normal map. Default is 8.

At the time of this writing, there is currently no input for a heightmap. Such an input can be added using the steps below. However, if you see a heightmap input, then this has been corrected and the steps below are not needed.

Double-click on the NormalFromHeightmapChaos function node to open it in a new Material Editor.
Locate the Texture Object (T2d) expression node. It should currently have the default (green slime) texture inside it.
Create a FunctionInput expression node and connect it to the Texture (T2d) inputs on the 3 Motion_4WayChaos function nodes.
In the properties for the new FunctionInput expression, set the Input Type property to FunctionInput_Texture2D .
Set the Input Name property to "Heightmap In" to label the input.
Connect the original Texture Object (T2d) expression node into the Preview input of the new FunctionInput expression node.