The set material textures section allows you to alter the way your cabinets look in the Presentation View. First you should select a color item from the left hand listing of colors. These color items follow the same convention as in Set Colors. They are broken up into schemes. After choosing a color item, you can alter various parameters that control how the color will appear in Presentation View. You can also set a texture for that color in order to make your cabinets look more realistic.
The screen has 3 tabs with various parameter to change, look below for an explanation of those tabs.
Textures Tab
The selection box in the top left hand corner on the Textures screen lets you choose which color you are going to working with. These color items are broken down in the same way as the set colors section. If you need to change the color, you should do it in the set colors section, this area will only allow you to set textures for that color.
On the top right hand side, there is a drop down box that lets you select which folder to look for textures. The box below that shows you the available textures you can choose from.
After you choose a texture you will see it in a preview window in the bottom of the form. On the right you will see what the texture file looks like, on the left you can see how it will look with the current settings in the program.
Settings Tab
This tab allows you to quickly set parameters for the texture you have selected. Make sure you have selected a texture before you set these parameters, the parameters are saved with each texture.
Dark/Light: This adjusts the amount of light seen on the texture, when you adjust the slide bar, you should see the preview picture update to your selections in the preview window.
Dull/Shiny: This adjusts the reflectiveness of the texture. A dull surface does not reflect light, a shiny surface reflects light. A mirror would have its texture set all the way to the extreme in shiny.
Solid/Transparent: This adjusts the ability to see through a texture. You can not see through a solid texture, you can completely see through a transparent texture. A glass item would have a high transparency and a cabinet would have no transparency.
Current Color: This shows you which color is currently selected, there is button below which if pressed will take you to the set colors screen. Here you can change the color of the current item. Note: This button is only active if you choose to merge the color with the current texture.
Blend/Replace Color: This is a pair of radio buttons that let you select whether to blend the color with the texture or replace the color with the texture. Blending the color with the texture, combines the texture color with the item color, that is set using set colors. Replacing the color with the texture, replaces the color item with the color of the texture. The original color of the color item is not factored.
Advanced:
The advanced tab lets you set individual parameters on the texture. This gives you more control of the way the image. Changes you make to these parameters will be reflected in the preview screen below.
Transparency: This sets the amount of transparency for the item, a setting of 0 will mean the item is not transparent, a setting of 100 will make the item completely invisible. Glass items would have a high transparency number, cabinets items should be 0 or very low.
Shininess: This sets the amount of reflection or an item. 0 is no reflection, 100 is total reflection. A mirror would be set to 100.
Ambient Light: This is the amount of non focused light in a room. A low setting will make things seem dark a high setting will make things seem bright
Diffuse Light: This is the amount of direct light that will shine on an object. This combined with Ambient Light determines the light/dark of the object.
Gloss Intensity:The size of the hot spot. Higher values make for a smaller spot
Gloss Amount:This sets the intensity of the light on the hot spot. Higher values yield a brighter spot.
Texture Size: This sets the texture size as it is to be applied to the cabinets. The texture size is in inches and determines how often the texture pattern will repeat. For example, if you were to set the texture size to 12 x 12, the texture would repeat on a 24 x 24 inch door. If you were to set the texture size to 0 x 0 the texture will be stretched to fit the 24 x 24 inch door.
Hint: If you create your own textures, you should make sure the original texture is a square. Rectangle textures could create distortion, which can be fixed using the texture size. However this can be a hit or miss prospect.
Buttons:
Set: This sets the current texture setting for the color item, it does not save it. Also if you do select a texture from the texture box, the settings will only apply for the texture using that color item. If you do not click set the changes you make will not take effect.
Close: Close the window.
Save Texture: This saves the current texture setting. Settings are saved for each texture. If you set and do not save, the texture settings will be lost the next to you come into this section.
Creating your own Textures:
You can use your own textures in KCDw. The program use graphics in Windows Bitmap format (.bmp). They can either be scanned in, using a flatbed scanner or drawn, using an graphics program. Once you have the file, you will need to place it in the program. All texture files reside in the texture folder that is within the KCDw folder on your hard drive. There are several sub folders in the texture folder, you can place your file in any of these subfolders, or create your own. Sub folders allow you to categorize your textures and keep them better organized.
Hints: When you create a texture, you should decided if you want this texture to merge with the cabinet color, or replace it. Merged textures should be done in grey scale with the image at a high contrast. This will keep the cabinet color from being altered by the color of the texture. If you are creating a texture to replace the cabinet color, you would want the texture's colors to be as bright as possible. Also you might want to make the texture a square, rectangular images can look distorted when being applied to cabinets. There may be times however when you might want to use a rectangular image, especially if you are trying to recreate a woodgrain for the side of a cabinet.